Nerima Werecat Clan
by Ryvaken Lucius Tadrya
Summary: After the failed wedding, Ranma and Akane find themselves hauled off on a new training journey to some ruins in the mountains. Instead of martial arts secrets, they run into Iceron's last experiment, and their lives change forever.
1. Training and Exploring

Chapter 1: Training Trip and They Who Would Unravel the Past

by Ryvaken Lucius Tadrya

It was a dark and stormy night. No, not really. It was actually summer, early afternoon, one of those unusually temperate days when the mornings are brisk and the evenings are warm. Rather pleasant, all things considered.

Unless you're a thrice-cursed martial artist named Ranma Saotome. Because on this particular day, well, things were going…badly. "What do you mean we're going on a trip?"

Genma smiled triumphantly. "Right here, Ranma!" He slammed a newspaper onto the table.

Ranma raised an eyebrow even as his stomach sank. Every time his father read something new and turned it into a training exercise, Ranma ended up cursed somehow. Or got an extra fiancée, which was usually worse. You'd think after nearly marrying Akane Genma would have given up the old scheme, but no the old panda kept selling Ranma's hand like it came from Midas himself. Then Akane would throw a fit, Ukyo wouldn't talk to him, and Shampoo would try to maim the new girl only to be thwarted by Kodachi trying to poison the lot of them. And then the suitors…and the rivals…and then he'd have a few days of normalcy before oyaji had a new idea.

Whatever the case, there was no way he could _try_ to fight it if he didn't know what "it" was. Ranma looked at the article. "Uh…'Famous American explorer discovers ancient ruins in mountains.' Why exactly should we care?"

"Foolish boy!" Genma snapped. "We can't let some American girl steal ancient martial arts secrets!"

_Because you want first crack at them,_ Ranma thought sourly. "And what makes you think there are martial arts secrets to find?"

"Ancient ruins always have martial arts secrets," Genma proclaimed.

Ranma thought that over for a moment and shrugged. Oyaji had a point. Anything older than a few years had some connection to the Art in his experience. And while Genma was probably thinking of scrolls and trophies that could be sold, Ranma had his own interest in learning new moves and adding them to his skills. "I guess this means we have a training trip," he sighed. "I'll go tell Akane." He headed to the dojo.

* * *

As anyone familiar with Nerima could testify, Ranma Saotome's love life was a nasty piece of work. Over the year of his life at the Tendo estate, his relationship with Akane Tendo had had more ups and downs than the most suicidal rollercoaster ever dredged from the lunacy of engineer kind. Not two weeks ago, however, the infamous failed wedding had broken a dam between the two. No one was exactly sure _what_ would go on between the two now, but one thing was certain. Things would never be the same again.

The other fiancées were still reeling from the blow. Kodachi had shown up on the Tendo grounds no less than four times to rescue her Ranma-sama from the wicked Akane. Akane Airlines made a brisk business deporting her back to the delusions she came from. Shampoo was simply staying away. The only time they saw her was when she was out on a ramen delivery, and even Ranma wasn't so oblivious to miss the red eyes and tear-streaked makeup on her usually pretty face. As for Ukyo, she had come by a few days later with a family sized offering of okonomiyaki and the one thing that Ranma had never expected: a genuine apology. She wasn't giving up the fight, but she admitted that hurling exploding food at her friends was a mistake.

Kuno, Mousse, and the menagerie of other fools in the twisted game called love had taken no notice of recent events and carried on, situation normal.

The only one who had truly moved on was Ryoga, who still showed up as P-chan when he got lost but spent most of his romantic efforts courting Akari. And his unromantic efforts were the same as ever – the battle for Akane's heart may have been settled, but thanks to Ranma, Ryoga had still seen hell. At least, according to Ryoga. Ranma privately believed that the Lost Boy had taken a wrong turn and simply missed the big gates reading **Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here**.

But for all the uncertainty in the air, one simple fact stood out as the most disturbing to those who sought the hand of either heir to Musabetsu Kakuto.

Ranma was training Akane.

Ranma walked into the dojo and smiled slightly. Akane was running a kata. "Good form, Akane, but you need to speed it up if you want to ever hit anything."

Akane took a few moments to respond, finishing her somewhat leisurely kata with a kick that Ranma was well aware could turn rocks into dust. "I can't hit hard enough if I go faster," she complained.

Ranma sighed and shook his head. Akane's conditioning was at least as good as anyone else in the martial madness of their lives, except for Ranma, Ryoga, and maybe Shampoo. Her skill in the Tendo School was equally impressive. However, Akane lacked three important things. Her basic forms were a mess, she had no idea how to evade or take a hit, and her confidence was all but nonexistent. It had taken Ranma a month to convince her that Kuno had never held back against her, and that was _after _dealing with that cheerleading mess. "You're using too much power, Akane," he said calmly. "Save those strikes for breaking down walls, not fighting."

Akane sighed. "I know," she mumbled. "Are we going to spar?"

Ranma smiled a bit more at the tone in his fiancée's voice. She wanted it, but she was scared of it too. "Ya know I don't like hittin' ya, Akane."

Akane rolled her eyes. "I'm a martial artist, Ranma," she scolded. "I throw away any right to be protected when I attack you." As Ranma taught Akane, so was Akane teaching Ranma. His idiot father had put some really weird ideas in his head about girls, and she had to get them out for both of their sakes.

"Yeah, but you ain't attacking and I ain't here to spar. Oyaji found out about some kind of ruins in the mountain. And if I'm going on a training trip, you are too."

"What?" Akane yelped, her form going slack all at once. Ranma made a quick note to remind her to keep her guard up. "But…but when? I have to get packed, tell my friends, sort out school…"

"Ranma!"Genma bellowed from somewhere inside the house. "Where are you? Stop wasting time!"

Ranma rolled his eyes. "I'd say you've got an hour to get cleaned up and ready to go before he tries to drag us out anyway. I'll try and buy you another hour, but I wouldn't count on having a third."

Akane watched Ranma head out to "distract" his father. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea," she muttered.

* * *

As it turned out, Akane had a good four hours to get herself ready. Ranma's ability to occupy Genma's head with his fist was part of the delay, but more credit belonged to Akane. She had expertly manipulated the Tendo home in such a way as to enrapture Genma for hours on end.

Namely, she set up the shogi board and placed a (small, cheap) bottle of sake on it.

"You might have gotten a full day out of that if Mr. Tendo was better at cheating," Ranma mused as they left the house.

"Maybe," Akane agreed. "Say, Ranma?"

"Un?"

"Why is my pack so light?" Ranma had packed their supplies himself. Genma, for once, had the heaviest pack. Ranma carried everything that had enough value that it would be worth pawning. That left Akane with little other than her personal survival gear.

Ranma grinned. "Well, oyaji and I talked that over. Carrying a heavy pack is good training, but you don't really need that kind of training."

Akane had a sinking feeling that this was going to go badly. "So, I don't do any training at all as we walk?"

"That's right," Genma agreed. "Because we're not walking."

"Jogging?" Akane asked.

Ranma pointed to the rooftops. "Today, you start your roofhopping sessions."

Akane whimpered slightly.

* * *

Her name was Gina. Dr. Gina Babette Diggers, to be precise. She had uncovered the greatest secrets of the ancient world. Other-reality phantoms, sentient dinosaurs, cities of gold, libraries from beyond the veil of time, stars from before the birth of the cosmos. Her discoveries became her theories, her theories became her inventions, her inventions became her tools, her tools opened new discoveries. But today, on this expedition, she was after a more…personal treasure.

"Dammit, Gina, how much longer is this going to take?"

Gina sighed. "I told you I had this covered, Brit."

Britanny Elin 'Gia (nee Diggers) glared down at her sister. "And I told you, if I didn't get out of that house for a bit I would go mad. You said this was a short expedition!"

Gina rolled her eyes. "A week, tops," she said. "That's very short for an expedition like this."

Britanny ground her teeth. Last month she had given birth to her firstborn daughter, Tiffany. Motherhood suited her, however Brit' had found herself to be far too much an adrenaline junkie to stay at home _all_ the time. So, while Stryyp watched their child, she went out to have a taste of adventure with her sister. "You didn't tell me it was some abandoned mountain in Japan."

"Brit, you're beginning to sound like Brianna," Gina warned.

"Don't even joke," Britanny muttered.

"Besides, if you were ever going to get off that unreasonably large ass of yours," Gina started.

Brit casually reached for Gina to enact appropriate retribution and was promptly foiled by Gina's anti-wedgie force field.

"Then this really is the best expedition to do it on," Gina finished with a smug tone.

Brit rubbed her hand. "That stings," she growled. "So what makes this trip so special?"

"Well, you remember Tiffany's delivery?"

Brit rolled her eyes. "I was kinda there, Gina."

"Okay, that was a dumb question. Anyway, it made me realize that while I'm learning about the ancient civilizations, I haven't really uncovered anything about the Age of Magic in _human_ civilization."

Brit nodded slightly. "That sounds interesting and all but…"

"And I found this site thanks to some legends Jetta gave me copies of," Gina said.

"What?" Britanny asked, finally making a connection that was relevant to her, personally.

Gina nodded. "Brit, we're studying the origins of lycanthropy!"

* * *

The mountain ruins were not much to look at. Time had weathered them to the foundations, possibly with help from any of a dozen conflicts in the area's history and who knows how many before that. Gina easily mapped out a simple stone wall and the dimensions of three buildings. Unfortunately, these ruins had obviously played host to modern visitors. Graffiti and litter alike spoke to squatters in the past year or two alone, and some uncaring soul had used some kind of pneumatic hammer to write "Akane" in finger-sized holes in one wall.

"Doesn't look like a lot was left," Brit said.

Gina nodded glumly. "I didn't expect much would be here, but even so this place has been trashed."

"Wait, you _didn't_ expect to find anything?"

"I didn't say _that_," Gina corrected. "Anything with a reasonable chance of surviving the years we'll find underground. Help me set up the GPR."

After an hour's efforts, Gina shouted in triumph and slapped her hand on a screen filled with squiggly lines. "Got it!"

Brit looked at the readout. "I see a horse eating a carrot with a baboon."

"Oh hush," Gina said. "Reading radar scans is an art. These deviations here tell me that there is a decently sized hollow in this part of the mountain."

"So there's a cave?" Brit guessed.

"Topography's all wrong for a cave this size," Gina said. "But see these sharp contrasts in density? There's something around the hollows, something much sturdier than the mountain."

"So…walls?" Brit guessed.

"That's right," Gina crowed. "The basement or cellar for whatever this place was. Now all we need to do is find an opening."

* * *

Gothwrain was an unhappy rat. Just over a month ago, he had been ready to enact the plan that would free his soul. He would be Iceron again. But no, that silly kryyn husband of the cat-whore had to be a good daddy and put family above duty. A minor miscalculation; Stryyp 'Gia was easily one of the less predictable pieces on Gothwrain's chess board. His trap was still in place, his attack ready, but if 'Gia didn't leave mother and daughter alone together for long enough for the Lich to play his part, Gothwrain was stuck. And much as he hated to admit it, some of the contingencies he had were not going to last. The mage council's tiny spy, for example, could not remain where he was for long.

Gothwrain's musings on the massive game his life had become were interrupted by one of his most ancient enchantments. "What?" he gasped. His head spun and he stared towards the distant island-nation of Japan, where an ancient security spell had just shouted its warning to Iceron.

Intruders at the stronghold.

Gothwrain growled. That lab was useless to him, his experiments all for naught. He had more important things to do than deal with some treasure hunters seeking thousand year old scraps. Besides, he knew better than anyone how unstable some of those experiments were. The intruders would be dead soon anyway, if they were lucky.

* * *

Gina's feet dangled through the hole in the ceiling for a moment before she grabbed the rope and climbed down to the floor. "…so that's why werewolves avoid Japan as a rule."

"And you think this place is the source of that boogeyman?" Brit asked. She jumped down easily, ignoring the rope.

The structure they were in was simple stone construction, built not to keep out intruders but to facilitate ease of navigation. The destroyed surface buildings had likely held the security portion of the complex. Gina and Brit had gained entry through a weakened part of the ceiling. (It was right under the Akane carving. It seemed that particular vandal had also carved an unusually twisted tunnel as his means of escape, like some kind of drunken mole.)

Gina nodded to Brit, staying carefully in the shaft of light from the hole above them. "I do. We know that werecreatures are magical beings, not natural creatures. And while I haven't figured out exactly what species werewolves were based on, the werecat species are all modern animals. Further, Dad was able to modify your enchantments. All of these facts suggest that werecreatures were created by human mages. That's not exactly a new supposition, but no one has ever really hunted for _proof_, let alone answers to all the other questions."

"Like why," Brit said softly.

"That would be a big one," Gina admitted. "'How' is another. And then there are those really vague things about werecreatures no one really understands. If we get all those answers, we might even be able to figure out what Brianna's full nature is."

"She does seem to develop the strangest talents," Brit agreed. "But then, I'm not making bullets out of nothing. Why do you think being part-werecheetah has anything to do with it?"

"Well I don't have any magic," Gina pointed out.

The universe sneezed.

"You have a point," Brit agreed, shaking off the feeling that she had missed some grand cosmological moment.

* * *

Ranma looked around. They were well outside civilization now, maybe half the way there. He heard a stream nearby and there was good shade here. "Okay, rest break," he called.

Genma turned. "Lazy boy! We break when gabuha!" He collapsed to the ground.

Ranma rolled his eyes and massaged his fist. "Well then, this is a 'gabuha' moment. How are you holding up, Akane?"

Akane didn't respond, as she was too busy lying face down on the ground, gasping for air. The moment Ranma had said "break" she decided that the ground looked awfully comfortable. She'd jogged further, and for longer, but keeping up with the Saotomes in wilderness was a lot more punishing than a simple jog along the streets.

Ranma considered his dying fiancée. "Ah," he said. He picked up her water canteen and found it empty. "Akane, if you run out, say something. Even oyaji isn't dumb enough to take this pace without water." He took his own bottle, still half-full, and pressed it into her hand. "Here. There's a stream nearby. Do you want to boil the water for the next leg of the trip?" Ranma knew that sooner or later, Akane would want to cook _something._ And her only reliable skill was boiling water.

Akane tried to leverage herself up and only managed to roll onto her side. Ranma put his hand on her shoulder to steady her. "Right. I'll get the water and set up the fire. You stay here, rest, and drink up."

True to his word, Ranma was back a few minutes later, now a she as the riverwater had been cold. She set up the fire calmly. By this time, Akane's breathing had settled to normal and she wasn't sweating as hard. "Thanks," she said weakly.

Ranma smiled. "Mountain training is rough," she said sympathetically. "There's a lot you have to do right. That's why I wanted to burn through your stamina early. Otherwise when you did collapse, you might actually be in trouble."

"Wait," Akane said. "You mean you were going that fast _on purpose_?"

"'Course," Ranma said easily. "You think I'm dumb enough to run you that hard by mistake?"

Akane thought that over. "Ranma no baka," she grumbled.

Ranma laughed lightly. "Well, the fire's going. Remember, get the water off as soon as it boils."

"Where are you going?"

Ranma held up her own bottle, now empty. "Someone drank all my water," she said in mock surprise.

Akane blushed.


	2. Cures and Confusion

Chapter 2: Cures and Confusion

Dedicated to Zafira, a three month old kitten that mews as I write

Ranma picked the rope up and frowned slightly. "I think the Americans are here already," he said. It was morning of the next day, they were at the site, and Gina's entrance into the ancient foundation was plain as day. As was Ryoga's graffiti, but that could have been made any time in the past year. Ryoga was probably in Singapore by now.

Genma waved vaguely. "They won't bother us," he said with all the certainty of a fool.

Ranma rolled his eyes. Oyaji was probably right – he couldn't imagine an American matching their skills. That didn't mean picking a fight was the smart move.

"Is this stupid?" Akane wondered.

"Probably," Ranma agreed.

Genma decided to be insulted by this and tripped Ranma into falling down the hole. "Keep your guard up!" he yelled.

Ranma twisted and hit the ground in a roll that absorbed the impact nicely. "Bakaoyaji!" he yelled back.

Genma leaped down while Akane climbed the rope. "Show some respect, boy!"

"Who are you people? What are you doing here?"

Ranma, Akane, and Genma turned to look at the blond woman who spoke. Ranma recognized that the woman was probably curvier than his own girl side (and for some reason this upset him). Akane saw how she was dressed and wondered if she was some kind of American she-pervert. Genma saw a girl.

"Out of the way, girl!" Genma declared. "We have business here."

Gina scowled at the fat man. "And what business would that be?"

"Not yours," Genma growled.

"Like I'd buy that," Gina huffed. "This is my excavation, registered and legal, and you're trespassing."

Genma waved that off. "It's for the Art," he said solemnly. He walked past Gina. "Come on, boy!"

Ranma sighed and followed Genma. Akane bowed to Gina. "I'm sorry for his actions. He is hoping to find martial arts lore or equipment."

Gina blinked. She hadn't uncovered much about the identity of the man who called this laboratory home, but she was absolutely certain he was an enchanter and sorcerer, not a martial artist. "This ruin wasn't a dojo or anything, though," she said.

Akane shrugged. "Ranma and his father have stumbled on a bunch of old martial arts stuff in weird places."

Gina was having a hard time fitting this group into her worldview. The old man was strutting through the ruin like he was expecting…whatever he was after to jump out and say "Hi!" rather than taking care to inspect what he found. His son wasn't as oblivious, but he was clearly putting most of his attention on his father. Gina winced as the old man spotted something shiny, only to be thwarted by a lightning-fast blow from Ranma, who started berating his father for being foolish. Well, at least Ranma seemed to have his fool of a parent under control. That just left…"What is your name?" Gina asked.

"Akane Tendo," Akane introduced herself. She gestured to the Saotomes, who were having what amounted to a Martial Arts Slapping contest and fortunately not going all out and endangering the ruin and any innocent bystanders. "Ranma and Genma Saotome."

"Gina Diggers," Gina introduced herself. "My sister Britanny is around somewhere." Probably the bathroom, since not much else could keep Brit from protecting Gina with strangers around. "I don't suppose if I promise to turn over copies of any martial arts stuff you'll just leave?"

Akane didn't have a chance to answer before the floor exploded. "WHERE AM I NOW?"

"Ryoga!" Akane and Ranma yelled in surprise. Indeed, the infamous Lost Boy was hip-deep in the floor, having burrowed up from below. It seemed that ever since he learned the bakusai tenketsu and the shi shi hokodan he was no longer concerned with merely getting lost above ground.

Genma clipped Ranma with a smack. "Don't get distracted, bo-uoaf."

Ranma pulled his fist from Genma's gut. "I am not a bouoaf," he said calmly.

"I don't think that joke works more than once," Akane observed.

"Akane? Ranma?" Ryoga asked.

"Gina!" came a new voice. Brit ran into the room from…actually it was hard to tell given how fast she was moving. The dust trail said it was from deeper in the ruin. "What was that explosion? Wait…who are these people?"

Now, it should probably be noted that Gina had been speaking Japanese, as was only courteous given that it was the native tongue and she spoke it fluently enough.

It should also be noted that Britanny did not have her sister's intellect, and was not fluent in Japanese. So her English was not so well received by the Japanese natives, who just stared at the cheetah-like girl wearing a pink skirt, white top, and pink jacket.

Genma snorted, typical ignorant girl, couldn't even speak a proper language. Everyone spoke Japanese! Well, everyone important, anyway. That train of thought stopped in the face of an urgent message from his well-honed consequence avoiding instincts. The new girl was obviously part cat…and the Nekoken reacted unpredictably with such creatures.

Ranma caught a few words, and while "explosion" meant nothing to him he was able to correctly assume the newcomer was attracted by Ryoga's loud entry. The back of his mind was cataloging Britanny's feline traits and comparing them to _fuzzy little demons_ and had decided that she was sufficiently different that freaking out wasn't required. As long as she didn't meow or something. So more important was the front of his mind, which had correctly identified Brit's speed, size, and obvious musculature as making her exceptionally dangerous.

Ryoga was remarkably multi-lingual, given his wanderings, but he wasn't really more than conversant in any given language. "I am Hibiki Ryoga," he said slowly.

Akane was a better student than some thought, and while she wasn't fluent beyond the highschool level, she was Ryoga's equal. "My name is Akane Tendo," she said. "He is Ranma Saotome. He is Genma. Who is you?"

Britanny caught the hesitation in Ryoga's voice and Akane's simple sentences and came to the appropriate conclusion. "Gina?"

"Yes I'll translate for you," Gina said in English. She turned to address Akane in Japanese. "Your English is not bad, but it might be better for me to translate. This is my sister, Britanny." She looked at Ryoga. "Brit wanted to know what that explosion was. I'm also curious. Are you a mage? Why were you traveling like that?"

"I'm no mage," Ryoga objected with pride. "I am a martial artist. And it's not my fault that someone hid the sky!"

"His sense of direction is bad," Ranma offered.

Gina blinked at that and tried to reboot her brain. Falling back onto old patterns, she deduced that she had stumbled into some kind of martial arts community that had developed "chi" magic. And, like most chi-adepts, did not call it magic. She also deduced that the two teenage males were hunks. Ranma in particular was an eleven on the hunkometer, even if he was very young. It was good Brianna had decided to sit this one out. "Um, okay. So you're lost?"

Ryoga ducked his head and Gina boggled as the hunk turned into a kicked puppy. Brit looked to Gina. "What are they saying?" she complained.

"Um, Ryoga has a bad sense of direction," Gina translated. "Although in this case I'd be more inclined to believe brain damage messing up his spatial reasoning."

"You think that's why he's here?" Brit asked.

Gina shook her head. "Even if he was able to find his way, there's nothing here for him. Whoever owned this place was very clearly working with werecreatures."

"Really?" Brit asked. "You found something?"

"Yup," Gina crowed. "Right before our 'guests' showed up. I don't have a name, or a reason, but I found some notes that explain some of the magic used here. He was definitely working on curing the lycanthropic 'thrall' curse. The weird thing-"

Gina never got to finish that sentence. Brit had set her on science mode and she had forgotten all about their Japanese guests, for the moment. Genma used the distraction to beat a hasty exit into the ruins to loot, er, liberate the scrolls of martial lore that were worth lots of money, er, that were rightfully his as a proper Japanese master of the Art. Ranma just watched the catgirl warily. Akane and Ryoga tried their hardest to follow Gina's monologue.

"Wait," Ryoga cried. "What was that about a cure for the curse?"

Gina had a sudden feeling that the world was about to go sideways. It was not a happy feeling.

"She has a cure?" Ranma asked excitedly.

Genma looked up from where he was inspecting a bit of plunder and threw the worthless hunk of thousand year old clay away. "A cure!"

Ryoga suddenly realized that if he asked Gina any more questions that Ranma and Genma would get the cure and take it for themselves! He ran off into the ruins, and for once in his life, he ran in the correct direction.

Ranma followed Ryoga, right on his heels. It wouldn't do to overtake the Lost Boy until the cure was in sight. Following Ryoga was usually a recipe for disaster, but for once it looked like he was actually going where he thought he was.

Ryoga felt a rush of joy. A cure was nearby, and he wasn't getting lost! His dark and lonely life was soon to be ended! Sure, he lost Akane, but as soon as he had that cure he could go to Akari a whole man and live his life in happiness. Now if only Ranma wasn't trying to get in his way. "Ranma Saotome, because of you, I've seen hell!" he bellowed his usual challenge. He lashed out behind him with a kick.

Ranma ducked the kick easily and returned the favor with a lightning-fast jab. "Same old song, P-chan," he taunted.

Genma jumped over them both. "It's mine! Mine mine mine!"

Akane was back with the Diggers and had her hand over her face. "Is it too late to say I'm not with them?" she asked rhetorically.

Gina grabbed her hair and twisted it nervously. "Jinkies! They're going to destroy the site at this rate!"

"On it," Brit said. A blink of an eye later and she had joined the fray.

Ranma was surprised when the catgirl joined the fight. "There's a spring of drowned catgirl?" he asked, forgetting that Brit didn't speak Japanese. Whatever, she was a decent fighter. Her ki was untrained but focused and her forms were sloppier than they could have been, but her speed, strength, and stamina were all in Ranma and Ryoga's league. The three-way battle only lasted a handful of seconds before Ranma realized that Ryoga and Britanny were both capable of pushing his limits separately, and only the fact that they were fighting eachother as well gave him a chance to pull a win out of this mess.

Britanny was faced with a similar realization. She was well aware that her training in Shun Leep left a great deal to be desired. Luan could outfight her human form with ease and she couldn't touch Gar or her mother no matter what she did. But against some boys, not even adults, who didn't have any superhuman enchantments to speak of, she expected to be a dominant fighter. Instead, the bandanna-wearing one was taking blows that could stop a truck like they were feather-light caresses and the pigtailed one was moving so fast she couldn't touch him. That wasn't supposed to be possible! She was a were-cheetah! She was supposed to be strong enough and fast enough to have two human teenagers begging for mercy without breaking a sweat!

Gina stared at the fight in shock. "I didn't know anyone could move like that," she mumbled.

Akane tilted her head. A few weeks ago, she mused, she wouldn't have been able to follow the fight beyond counting the number of blows, at best. Ranma's training was already paying dividends, because she could see the fight. She couldn't predict the next move, she couldn't even think fast enough to try, but she was watching and thinking fast enough to keep up with the moment. "Your sister is very good," she told Gina. "She's already dodged a hundred blows, and taken nearly twice as many without slowing. And Ranma's going all out to keep up with her."

Gina looked to Akane. "You can follow that?" she wondered.

Akane shrugged. "Ranma's been training me."

Gina blanched slightly. If Akane had even a fraction of Ranma's speed, as close as they were standing, Gina wouldn't have any time to activate a defensive shield. She hoped the girl remained as calm as she seemed to be.

Ranma ducked a punch from Brit and parried the next, pushing her blow to one side. He added enough force to unbalance her for a splitsecond and create an opening. It was not enough to get a clean blow, but it was everything he needed to employ the Saotome Secret Technique: run away. He leaped backwards, spun around, and hit the ground running after Genma. Ranma saw no need to horde a cure for himself, assuming there was more than enough for one, but he knew his father better than that. Genma would use it all, or keep whatever made the cure for himself, or just destroy it so that no one else could take it from him. And he'd call it training if Ranma objected.

On the other hand, Ranma had long since outclassed his father. He caught up to Genma in the next room, which the panda was ransacking. The room was some kind of laboratory, Ranma decided. Ancient-looking flasks of liquid sit on different tables, many with much more recent notes written on them (in English). Genma was opening them up and splashing himself with them, which explained why he was a panda. "Oyaji you idiot!" Ranma yelled. "You don't have a clue what those are!"

Genma held up a sign. [Stupid boy!] Flip. [It's a cure!]

"And are you supposed to drink it or splash it?" Ranma snapped. This weird potion lab reminded him of chemistry class, and for perhaps the second time he wished that he paid more attention to his science teacher. The first had been when he was careless with a bottle of "water" that turned out to be acid. That had just burned a little. Ranma didn't want to know what a misapplied cure would do.

Ryoga wasn't about to let Ranma get ahead, but Britanny was too fast to get away from. The best Ryoga could pull off was to drag their fight into the potion room. Akane followed, hoping to find some way to stop the madness (or join in. She _was_ a martial artist herself, after all.)

[You just want it for yourself!] Genma signed. He picked up one of the unlabeled bottles and threw it at Ranma. After all, if the American girl had found a cure, it would be one of the labeled bottles, right? Right! Ranma ducked but the bottle still shattered against the wall and ice-cold yellow potion splashed far further than it had any right to, coating him, Britanny, and Akane. Ryoga was ready with his umbrella and escaped the splash zone untouched.

Gina entered around that time and stared at the now-female Ranma covered in yellow potion. "He made a potion that turn hunks into girls?" Gina whined, thinking that whoever once owned this lab had been responsible for Ranma's transformation.

"Huh?" Akane asked. "No, that's Ranma's curse. He turns into a girl when splashed by cold water."

Gina's hormones latched onto that thought. "So if we dry him, er, her off, she'll turn back into the hunk?"

"Hot water," Akane corrected. "What's a 'hunk?'"

"Nevermind," Gina said. Hormones later! "If that's his curse, the cure here won't help him, er, her, at all."

"Would someone explain why there's a panda here!" Britanny yelled.

"Is Genma!" Akane yelled back in broken English.

Britanny frowned. So the old man was a were-panda. She didn't even know there were were-pandas. She'd have to be careful now that he was in his animal form.

Gina winced as the flask she had labeled "unknown high energy reactant" was smashed by the growing brawl. Quite aside from the continuing loss of the opportunity to discover, messing around with magical compounds was massively dangerous. "Stop it!" she yelled. No one listened.

Genma scowled. The catgirl was being more careful now, but that was almost making her _more_ dangerous because some more training was coming out in her moves. Her Master was good, very good. Genma didn't know the style, but the punches were replaced with open palm blows and the girl's ki was more focused. All of which promised pain if he didn't find some way to get away, quickly.

Contrary to popular opinion, Genma was not a useless lazy sack of flab. He was a world-class martial artist, with excellent physical conditioning and a keen tactical mind. He knew that simply running away was useless; the catgirl's speed was well above his own. He had to get away…there were deeper areas to the ruin. He could go there and search for a cure after losing the catgirl…by distracting her! With…the boy! Why wasn't he going into the nekoken anyway? Ungrateful son, this was the perfect time to use the technique Genma suffered so much to teach him! Well, maybe a push was necessary.

Gina blinked at the panda which was now waving a rainbow-colored sign that read [Nyanyanyanyan nyan nyan nyanyanyanyan…] with one hand while fending off Britanny with the other.

In accordance with popular opinion, Genma **was** an idiot.

In accordance with the rules of such things, Ranma's foot intersected Genma's face with flawless accuracy. "What the hell are you tryn' ta do!"

Britanny stared at the sign for a moment and turned to Gina. "Gina?"

"It makes no more sense if you can read it, Brit," Gina replied.

"I think Genma was trying to send Ranma into the nekoken," Akane said in Japanese. This was too complicated to risk to her English skills.

"'Nekoken?' What's that?" Gina asked.

Akane decided on the short version. "Ranma becomes an insane super-martial artist when threatened with a cat," she said. Experience had shown that the extreme violent reaction was the best one to tell people about. "Ranma is really afraid of cats" had a horrible tendency to invoke "ooo, I wanna see!" reactions. Then came the screaming and the blood and Nerima's average property values drop another precious notch (there were many reasons why Nabiki, shrewd investor and usurer, had no investments in local real estate.)

"Jinkies!" Gina yelped, switching quickly to English. "Brit! Don't turn into your animal form!"

"Huh? Why?" Brit was confused; she almost never went full-cheetah, especially in a fight, so why would Gina warn her off it?

"She has an animal form?" Akane asked, still in Japanese.

And so Akane joined Ryoga on the list of people who shouldn't have translated what Gina said.

Genma grinned. The catgirl _was_ cursed after all! Foolish boy, to think he could get Genma to believe there really wasn't a cure here. Now, all he had to do was splash the girl and get out.

Ranma stumbled slightly as her own thoughts paralleled her father's. She also knew that she couldn't let the catgirl trigger her nekoken. So she had to get away quickly.

Genma succeeded in his goal first. A beaker of something green with a thick layer of frost shattered against Brit and drenched her in cold liquid. "YEEEEK!"

[Now, boy, attack the cat!] Genma signed as he turned to run. He made it three steps.

Brit ran up to Genma, still very humanoid and now very, very annoyed as her clothes were plainly ruined. "Stryyp got me this shirt," she growled.

Genma was too stunned by the failure of his foolproof plan to react, and within a few seconds Britanny had invented Panda Pretzels.

"One down," she said grimly. "Now for…the…kids. Gina? Where did they go?"

Gina looked around and noticed that Ranma, Ryoga, and Akane had all run off. "I have a bad feeling about this," she sighed.

Ranma couldn't believe her luck. A cure! An actual cure! Just a few weeks ago she decided that hunting down cures was more trouble than it was worth. Her female side had forced her to mature a bit, and looking back, she decided that she liked who she was now (well, minus the chest appendages she was sporting) more than who she was before. But with a cure **right here** she couldn't just ignore it. Her curse wasn't a huge issue in need of resolution, but it was _still_ a curse. Now she just needed to get it before Genma or Ryoga. Genma was out of the running, judging by the screams echoing from the potion room, but pig-boy was hot on her heels. And that…_girl_ would catch up with them pretty fast. Ranma tried to lose the lost boy by dodging left into a small room. She also pulled a thermos of hot water from her shirt. This had happened often enough that she was ready for it this time.

Ryoga fell for it as only Ryoga could. "You won't get away from me that easily, Ranma!" he yelled. He turned exactly where Ranma did…to the right. Faced with the blank wall and totally oblivious to Ranma behind him (who was facepalming at how easy that was) Ryoga bellowed his rage. "Hiding the door won't save you! Bakusai tenketsu!"

Ranma's eyes widened and he dove for cover behind the doorframe in what appeared to be an ancient broom closet while Ryoga blew a hole in the wall.

"Now what are you blowing up?" Akane yelled, trying to catch up. "Stop breaking things, Ranma!"

Ranma stuck his head into the hallway to glare at Akane. "I ain't doing nothing!"

"Likely story! You…what is that?" Akane asked weakly.

Ranma blinked at the sudden change of tone and turned to look at the hole Ryoga had created. He had unsealed a room, a room that seemed to have no doors, with a pillar of softly glowing light containing what looked to be a firework that kept exploding over and over again.

"I…don't know?" Ranma said. But he had an idea. That thing was clearly magical. And that might mean it was his long awaited cure!

"Alright you three," Britanny growled behind them. "Let's go back to Gina so she can translate for me and we can get this mess sorted…out?" Britanny looked at the pillar for a moment, then turned. "GINA!"

Ranma had no idea what the catgirl was saying, but he knew that yelling for Gina meant she would come and try and take the cure for her research or something! "No!" he shouted, running for the pillar.

"Not without me you don't!" Ryoga snarled, hot on his heels.

"Stop!" Akane yelled, running after them. "We don't know what that is!"

"What the, hey!" Brit yelped as everyone ran towards the giant pillar of magic. This was very bad. She had to stop them! She targeted the leader, Ranma, ran up behind him, and swung to deliver a palm combination to his side. Ranma twisted to cover himself but trying to run and fight at such an angle was too much and one of her strikes clipped him and sent him spinning.

Right into the pillar.

Britanny had just enough time to say a very bad word before the magic contained in the room exploded.

* * *

Gothwrain grumbled. For over a day he'd been receiving that little buzz in his mind from the telepathic security alarm in his old lab. He'd built it in hopes of curing himself, before the lycanthropy took full hold on his soul and made such research impossible. For all that he could construct a werematrix without lycanthropy, actually removing the active enchantment from the thrall was apparently impossible…as he had designed it to be. All that was left in the lab were a bunch of reactant potions and a half-formed energy matrix from an experiment he could never finish, all certainly decayed by time and turned into useless magic by now.

Gothwrain got a new message that nearly gave him a heart attack.

[Experiment 089G completed. Unlycanthropic strain confirmed in four test subjects.]


	3. Clan Reborn

Chapter 3: Clan Reborn

Gina ran when Brit called but didn't arrive until after the explosion. The hidden room was filled with smoke and figures stumbling around. Gina spotted fur on the closest and pulled her out. Her eyes were screwed tight, and she fell to her knees in a fit of coughing. "Brit! You had me so worried! Are you…o…kay…you're…not Britanny."

Akane coughed again and looked blearily towards Gina. "Of course not," she coughed. "How could you mix us up?" She stood up and… "Did you get shorter?"

Gina winced. This was not going to go well. She went into her tools and pulled out a small mirror she used for seeing at angles where her head wouldn't fit. "Here."

"Huh?" Akane asked. She looked at the mirror and froze in shock.

Gina looked at the neophyte werecheetah with a mix of intrigue and sympathy.

Meanwhile, the dust had mostly cleared from the room. Gina tore her eyes from Akane and looked the scene over. Britanny's fur had puffed up from the power that ran through her, giving her a pointed head of hair. She was still in her strike pose, looking like her brain had simply shut down and failed to restart as she contemplated what she was seeing.

Which, Gina noticed, was that she had apparently punched werecheetahism into Ranma. Who was looking at his fur covered hands in a shock entirely of his own. Gina also cataloged that the (YOUNG!) hunk was a megahunk when werecat muscles and build were added to his impressive physical conditioning. Yum.

The boy, Ryoga, seemed to be unconscious. Which was good, because Gina didn't want to even start trying to figure out what was different about him that made him a werepig. Although that slight muzzle was kinda cute.

Ranma recovered enough to realize he really was covered in fur, but was still mostly human…like the catgirl! "You! What did you do to me?" he yelled, attack Britanny afresh.

Britanny's mind went into overdrive. Ranma had been a match for her a few seconds ago. His new body was screwing up his moves, but she knew very well how much more power and speed he could bring to bear. And amazingly he was already adapting. His punches and kicks, thrown off by his extended reach, were smoothing out. She figured a minute, maybe two, and she wouldn't stand a chance. But, somehow, by whatever fluke of magic just happened, she'd infected him with lycanthropy, so he was under her control. She just had to figure out how to use that control. An image flitted through her mind and she put one hand on her hip, the other at her chin, and extended a finger. "Sit, boy!"

Ranma blinked and Britanny ducked another kick. "So much for that idea!"

"Try it in Japanese!" Gina yelled.

"Great idea! What the hell do I say then!"

"Oh, right. 'Osuwari!'"

"OSUWARI!"

Ranma blinked again…and this time kicked Britanny square in the face. "Is pop's stupidity contagious?" he raged.

"I don't think this is lycanthropy," Britanny mumbled around Ranma's foot. "Owie."

"Wha…what happened to us!" Akane yelled.

That was enough to wake Ryoga. "Ranma! How dare you let something happen to Akane!"

Ranma decked Ryoga as he tried to stand. "Can it, pork breath. We have more important things to worry about…wait." Ranma suddenly realized he was next to Ryoga instead of Britanny. Well, obviously. He walked over to deal with him. But how had he _walked_ that quickly? He looked Britanny over and contemplated _her_ speed. "Much more important," he repeated under his breath.

Ryoga fell on his muzzle and grunted in pain. Wait, muzzle?

Akane handed him Gina's mirror. Ryoga took it, puzzled, and stared at his reflection.

Gina waved her hand in front of the werepig's face. "How long does it usually take him to snap out of it?" she asked the other two.

Ranma was about to answer when Britanny came up behind him and put him in a judo shime-waza (a chokehold). "I dunno what you're saying," she grunted, "but you should take a nap so Gina and I can sort this out." She was pleased with herself; the fight would end quickly after all.

Ranma had other ideas. Britanny went over the fight several times in her head over the next week but was never able to explain how, exactly, she ended up flying over his shoulder as if she was light as a feather. There was certainly nothing light about how her back hit the floor. In a flash she was up and the werecatfight began anew, quickly devolving into a lightning-fast cloud of violent dust from which yells and roars echoed.

Akane sighed. "That fight is getting dumb," she muttered.

"Getting?" Gina asked. "Seems pretty pointless to me already."

"Try and visit Nerima sometime," Akane snorted.

"Right," Gina mumbled, putting Nerima on her personal avoid-at-all-costs list. She turned to Ryoga, who was still staring at his reflection. "Do you have any idea why you turned into a pig?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Jusenkyo," Ryoga said numbly. "Spring of drowned piglet." It wasn't like it was an original question. If the strange American girl wanted the story, that was fine. It wasn't like she was-

"What?" Akane asked. "You have a curse, too?"

-Akane. Ryoga tore his gaze from the mirror to stare into Akane's confused eyes.

Akane looked back into the big, wide eyes of P-chan. Those same soulful eyes she went to bed with. That same cute bandana…although he was wearing it around his forehead instead of neck. And he was bigger. And person-shaped. And Ryoga.

Akane's brain took a few moments to reboot and process that again.

Ryoga. Had a curse. That turned him into P-chan.

Akane had taken P-chan to her bed.

Akane had taken _Ryoga_ to her bed.

Ryoga had slept in Akane's bed, seen her naked, and heard her private thoughts.

Ryoga saw Akane twitch, a slight movement from her ears to her tail. This was going to be…bad.

Akane was an heir of Tendo-ryo Musabetsu Kakuto. She was trained in the art of many weapons, which she held in a ki pocket and called at need. Her aura manifested into the visible spectrum as she recklessly reached for her two favorites. Mallets, each twice as big as its twin, appeared in both of her hands. "Ryoga," she growled, low and angry, "no BAKA!"

Ryoga ran. He didn't pick a direction, he just chose to go away from the angry Akane and fled. He made it halfway to the door before a lovetap sent him sprawling. A second mallet strike to his legs drove his hardened flesh into the softer stone floor.

Akane was impressed with herself. She could outrun Ryoga. Not only that, but she wasn't even breathing hard. She was well aware that Ryoga not fighting back had a great deal to do with her success, but that didn't make it feel less good. She pulled back her mallets to deliver another round of punishment – it would take her a while to get him to feel a sufficient quantity of pain through that Bakusai Tenketsu trained hide. She was also dimly aware that she was yelling all of Ryoga's crimes at him, but that wasn't really important. She might need a lozenge later.

Gina stared as the formerly levelheaded catgirl became a violent maniac having a craving for werebacon.

Ranma forgot all about the fight with Britanny and just basked in the glory of Ryoga's comeuppance.

Britanny just stared. She had no idea what the girl was screaming, but from her tone she surmised that the werepig was some kind of lech or sex criminal, for which the Japanese word was apparently "puchan."

Ranma took his time strolling over to Akane and gently took her arms in his steel-hard grip and pulled the mallets from her hands.

Akane felt something break inside her and suddenly she wasn't feeling anger at all. She let Ranma turn her away from Ryoga, buried her face in Ranma's chest, and bawled her eyes out. "How…could…he…do…that…to…me?" she sobbed.

Ranma looked down at the still-conscious Ryoga, who had gone beyond depressed into ashamed and mortified. "He should tell you himself," Ranma said softly. "Later." Still looking at Ryoga he mouthed "Get lost."

Ryoga nodded dully. Since when did Ranma have a sensitive side? Didn't matter. He got up and quietly made for the exit.

"Um," Gina interrupted, looking embarrassed, "I realize that something huge and emotional just happened, but you three are still apparently werecreatures and have no idea what that means, and there are other problems with how that happened that we need to talk about."

Ranma looked over the American girl and her catgirl sister and considered Akane, who had stopped crying and had settled for dry coughs and gasps. "Give us a few minutes?"

"Of course. Just saying, Ryoga is it? Uncomfortable as this is, you really shouldn't leave yet."

Ryoga nodded dully. He didn't care about anything. At least for the moment. He lost Akane romantically back at Jusendo, maybe earlier, and he was at peace with that. Losing her as a friend was still a heavy blow.

Gina chewed her lip slightly. "We should finish this up in my camp. I think it would be more comfortable while we work out exactly what just happened."

* * *

As soon as the combined Diggers-Nerimian group left, an elderly figure stepped out of the shadows and lit a cigar. "This…was not part of the plan."

And then he was gone. The message had been confirmed.

* * *

The Diggers's camp turned out to be an ultramodern assembly of self-setting tents and portable appliances of improbable size and complexity for two women to carry. The three youths (and Genma, who had somehow unpretzeled himself) lounged in the larger tent. Genma was playing with a tire…no one was sure where he got it. The Nermians knew better than to ask. Ranma sat between Akane and Ryoga, with Ryoga as far away as he could be without being completely out of the conversation.

Gina walked into the tent with a tea set. "Um, I suppose I should play a gracious host," she said, setting the tray down before her 'guests.' She turned to Britanny. "And as for you, we need to do something about you not understanding what anyone is saying."

"Gina, if you try to shove a fish in my ear, I will give you a wedgie like you have never dreamed possible," Brit warned.

Gina rolled her eyes and tossed Brit what looked like an oversized cellphone earpiece. "I put that together while the tea was brewing."

Brit looked it over suspiciously and clipped it to her ear. "And what is it?"

"Hey, I understood that," Ranma said.

"You what?" Brit asked. "Wait, when did you learn to speak English?"

Ranma sulked. "My grades aren't _that_ bad."

"That device," Gina interrupted, "contains enough of a Japanese-English dictionary to see you through. At least for now."

"Well why weren't you using it earlier then?" Ranma asked.

"I just built it," Gina said reasonably.

Ranma stared. He knew very little about electronic technology and computer programming, but he had a healthy respect for how hard it was to learn a language, and this woman had just taught two languages to that little box in what had to be five minutes at most.

For her part, Gina just shrugged. Voice recognition and synthesis were old hat, so really all it took was borrowing that code, duplicating it, creating new syntax and vocabulary files for Japanese, and linking them together. If she had had a few more minutes, she would have installed a camera for translating text, too. Nothing any super-genius couldn't do. "Anyway, I imagine you three have a lot of questions."

"I have a bunch too," Brit muttered.

"And so do I," Gina admitted. "In any case, I serious doubt we have all the answers, but if we share what we do know, we might get a few steps closer to them."

"What spring did you fall in?" Ranma asked Brit.

"Spring?" Brit asked, confused. "You mean like a pool of water?"

Ranma blinked and gestured at Brit's body. "You didn't pick up that fur at Jusenkyo?"

"Jusenkyo?" Gina asked. She reached to her wrist. The bracelet device wasn't designed to be a computer terminal originally, but after all the encounters with the dragons' strange phantom rings, she had rebuilt it to serve as a terminal with a hyperwave link to GinaCom. "I think I came across something about that when I was studying Asian mages. It's somewhere in China, right?" A hologram popped out of her wrist, a screen and keypad combo. She typed away at the air.

"Er, yeah," Ranma said. How many gizmos did the girl have, anyway?

Gina paused. "Um…a thousand cursed springs? Oh, your gender thing. So are you originally a guy or girl?"

"I'm a guy!" Ranma yelled.

Gina winced slightly. "Sorry. Touchy subject?"

"You have no idea," Akane muttered.

"I take it that your father isn't a were-panda, then?"

"What's a were-panda?"

Gina sighed. "We have a long way to go it seems. I guess we'll start with lycanthropy 101."

* * *

Akane rubbed her temple, trying to ignore the fur on her fingers and forehead. Her eyes were bloodshot and she had the puffy look of someone who had been crying a lot (even through her fur), but her voice was steady. "So you are a were-cheetah, but you don't have the ability to make new were-cheetahs, which your father stripped from you because he thought you'd accidentally make slaves."

"Yes," Britanny said.

"And this ruin belonged to the guy who made were-cheetahs?" Ranma asked, sounding equally pained.

"I don't think so," Gina said. "What I've been able to figure out is that he was working on weres that were already in existence, not making new breeds."

"And somehow whatever gunk Panda-baka tossed on me and Ranma made us were-cheetahs," Akane said dubiously.

"It was probably a factor," Gina agreed. "Ryoga was hit by different potions and his curse clearly influenced his transformation."

"So how do we cure this?" Ryoga asked gruffly, trying to get the conversation off his curse.

Gina sighed. "It's…not that simple. This isn't a disease; I've been able to prove that conclusively. I don't think it's a curse, either, since none of you are beholden to Britanny."

"Don't tell me," Akane breathed.

"No one knows any way to turn a were into a human. That's what this ruin was devoted to, and as far as I can tell it was a miserable failure. Maybe because of your unique means of transformation it can be peeled away, but it's just as likely that the magic is even more tightly woven on you because it's such a tangled mess."

Britanny sighed as the three lycanthropes froze like stone statues again. "Maybe we should call Dad."

"Magic is his arena," Gina agreed, pulling out her phone.

"Never be human again?" Ryoga whimpered. All his worries about being locked as a piglet were coming true.

Britanny tilted her head. "Well, if you are a were-pig, you should be able to take human form again."

"WHAT!" the three teens all yelled, the shock blown away. "You said there wasn't a cure!" Ryoga accused.

Britanny rolled her eyes and concentrated a moment. She collapsed in on herself, leaving a slightly scrawny girl with dirty-blonde, brown-spotted hair and slightly pointed ears, but otherwise identifiably human..

Ranma and Ryoga felt their jaws drop while Akane just felt relief.

"Were-creatures have three forms," Britanny explained. She shifted again to full cheetah form…and froze. _Gina said not to go cheetah in front of Ranma!_ She slowly looked towards the boy.

Ranma didn't react at all. "Huh. So human, cat, and halfcat?"

Ryoga stared. Akane stared. Britanny nodded. "Righ'," she growled crudely.

"Ranma," Akane said weakly.

"Yeah?"

"You're…you're in the same room as a cat."

Ranma blinked a few times. "Hey." He looked at Britanny. "You're right. She's a cat. She's a cat!"

Gina looked over from her phone call. "What's the yelling about?"

"No more nekoken!" Ranma cheered.

"O…kay…" Gina turned back to her phone. "Dad? Yeah, the sooner you could come the better. Things are getting stranger. Yes, I said stranger. Great, see you soon." She clicked off the phone and looked to Brit. "Dad will be here in about five minutes…and you shredded your clothes again."

"Rrr?" Brit looked herself over. "Oos."

Gina pushed a few buttons on her wrist terminal. "Right, one change of clothes coming…up?" A blinding flash and loud KRAK sounded as space and time were bent over Gina's knee and paddled into submission to teleport…a small metal dome shaped thing with eyes and a tail.

"Chu?"

"Peebochu, I did **not** choose you!" Gina pushed another button.

"CHUUU!" The peebochu vanished in another flash that deposited a neatly folded set of Britanny's clothes in the tent.

Brit took them in her mouth and trotted off to get some privacy. "Than's."

"You're welcome," Gina called. She looked at their guests. The three teens and the panda were all staring at her. "What?"

"Where do I even begin?" Akane muttered.

"You pull hammers out of thin air and a little hyperspatial storage tech freaks you out?"

"But you didn't manipulate your ki at all," Ranma protested.

Gina smiled and held up one of her gadgets. "I'm not really that good with stuff like that, so I build tech to help me along."

Genma's beady panda eyes roved through the technological mockery of a campsite with new appreciation. Rather than useless toys used by soft, weak foreigners, suddenly he saw valuable machines that could make martial arts better. Or fetch a nice sum of yen in a pawn shop.

Ranma had more important things to worry about than his father's greed. "So what was that about turnin' back to normal?"

Gina shrugged. "I'm not a werecheetah. You'll need to wait for Brit to get back."

Ranma was half out of his chair when Akane's hand grabbed his shoulder. He turned and looked into a glare of doom that had nothing to do with werecheetah enchantments. "You are not going to barge in on a naked woman," she growled.

"Yes ma'am," Ranma agreed meekly.

Britanny returned a few moments later. "So much for theory. You can probably figure out some shifting by yourselves, but…" she trailed off and watched Ryoga and Ranma develop mildly constipated expressions. "BUT! You haven't built up enough lunar energy shift instinctively. You can only do that once every day."

Ranma winced. "That sounds restrictive."

"Which is why there's a technique to tap energy freely," Britanny said with a wink. "Now, I've never taught this to anyone, but it all comes together and becomes really easy when you do it right."

A few minutes later, Theodore Diggers teleported into the ruins. The old aura-mage was wearing his mage suit and a curious expression. "Hello, Gina. What was getting so strange?"

Gina pointed.

Theo turned and…stared. And stared. And _stared_, utterly dumbfounded by the sight before him.

Three cheetahs were…apparently playing. Understandably a trained eye with cheetahs, he quickly identified one as male, one as Britanny, and all of them as werecheetahs. The male and his daughter were keeping the other female werecheetah from reaching (and probably snacking on) a small black piglet. There was also a trained panda waving signs in Japanese. Theo didn't read the language, so he ignored it. Well, as much as someone could ignore a panda waving signs around.

Gina reached over and closed her father's mouth. "Careful daddy, you'll catch flies like that," she teased.

Theo spared Gina a withering glance before returning to watch the absurd spectacle. "I think you'd better fill me in."

"Sounds good," Gina agreed. She pulled out a forcefield projector and caught Akane in a bubble. The neowerecat yowled in rage and clawed at the field. "Britanny's never been able to claw through one of my forcefields," Gina warned. "Don't waste your energy. Just calm down and change back, and I'll let you out, Akane."

Akane roared something that would send sane men running for the horizon. No one so much as flinched. "I think calming down will take a while," Theo observed. "Shouldn't we just give her the piglet?"

"BWEEEEE!"

"That's Ryoga," Gina explained. "He's a werepig."

Theo blinked once. "What."

* * *

A few minutes later Akane was calm(er) and the neophyte werecreatures were in their human forms. Ryoga's skin was darker by several shades, and he sported a somewhat flatter nose than he used to, but he was otherwise unchanged. Akane and Ranma's ears were pointed and their hair was dirty blonde with brown splotches. Ranma was taking more care than ever to stay between Akane and Ryoga; Akane's emotions were still raw and they didn't need her to snap a third time.

"Well I can see why you called me," Theo said, hands and eyes glowing with mana. "This is not lycanthropy at all."

Ranma and Akane sighed in relief. Thralldom didn't appeal to them, thank you very much.

"In fact," Theo mused, "I can't find a lycanthropic enchantment in their auras at all. But there's…something else. Something filling the hole I created in Britanny when I stripped her lycanthropy."

"A replacement for lycanthropy?" Gina asked.

"Possibly," Theo agreed. "I'll need to explore an unmodified werecat aura to be sure."

"Which means going to Jade," Gina surmised.

"That's right," Theo agreed.

"Where?" Ranma asked.

"Jade is another world," Theo explained. "At the end of the Age of Magic on earth, most werecats and mages and such left Earth for Jade."

"They largely abandoned technology," Gina added. "Sociologically the culture is intensely interesting, not only the magical predominance but also the strong tradition of nonmagic armed and unarmed combat."

Everyone perked up at that. "There are martial artists on Jade?" Ranma pried. "Are they strong?"

Britanny grinned. "They'd wipe the floor with you, kid. Mom's the Armsmaster – the best of the lot. I can't even touch her."

"I thought you said you were the only werecheetah until now," Akane objected.

"Julia is human," Theo said. "And no, for all Britanny's strength and speed, she can't lay a finger on her if Julia doesn't want her to."

"Sounds interesting," Ranma said with a grin.

Akane sighed. "You just triggered the 'Ranma Saotome doesn't lose' reaction. He'll be challenging Mrs. Diggers within the week."

Britanny looked Ranma over and wondered if there would be anything left of Georgia after he and mom went at it.

Akane shook her head in resignation and grimaced when a bit of hair floated into her vision. "Well it's nice to be furless again," she said, although she didn't have a lot of strength behind the sentiment, "but there's no way our hair is going to go unnoticed."

"It's worse than that," Ranma grumbled.

"How?" Gina asked.

"Ryoga?" Ranma called. "Akane and I have identical tattoos."

Akane blinked. "I don't have any-"

"RANMA!" Ryoga bellowed. "What did you do to Akane!"

Ranma held Ryoga off and looked to Akane. "I was kidding, bacon breath. This is why it's worse. Everyone is going to assume that something happened to the two of us, together, and blame me. Except Kodachi."

"Who will blame me," Akane gulped. "Kamisama, this is going to get ugly. We'll need to get Nabiki on our side this time."

"Nabiki?" Gina asked. She looked at Akane with renewed interest. "You know Nabiki _Tendo_?"

"She's my sister," Akane confirmed. "How do you know her?"

"I don't know her, but I know of her. All the explorers working Southeast Asia have read her papers on the Chinese Amazons, ancient princedoms, and other hazards to be avoided or negotiated with. She's been nominated for a few awards for the obvious effort and hardships she went through to gather that information."

Ranma stood there twitching for a few moments.

Britanny looked at Gina. "I get the feeling you just set off a powder keg."

* * *

Nabiki typed a few more lines and read her work. She was going to graduate from Furinkan next year, and unlike the rest of her family she had plans. Plans that needed money. Nerima was profitable enough for day to day expenses and pocket change, but in the long term she needed deeper pockets to fund her ambitions. The Explorer Society was perfect. A bunch of nerds and enthusiasts who would pay exorbitant fees for anything unique and potentially related to their interests, whose interests happened to include the kinds of people that Ranma ran into every other week, and who had a lovely tendency to find ancient treasure of unfathomable value.

She wasn't entirely sure why she was writing papers instead of selling salvage from Ranma's misadventures, but the funding she received (ostensibly to support her expeditions) was more profitable than selling most of the junk Ranma left behind.

"Nabiki!" Kasumi called from outside. "Phone!"

Nabiki blinked and picked up the phone by her computer. "Hello?"

"Hello, Nabiki."

Alarms went off in Nabiki's mind. "Akane? I thought you were out on a training journey."

"I am. We ran into a new friend; Gina Diggers."

Nabiki winced. She knew that name. "Is she the American Uncle Saotome wanted to stop?"

"We know about the journals, Nabiki."

Damn. "Okay," Nabiki said, all business. "Ten percent."

"You can keep the money," Akane said.

Nabiki felt a chill. She ignored it, as the Ice Queen is wont to do, but that didn't mean she didn't recognize it. Akane letting her off the hook that easy was not a good sign. "What happened?"

"Nabiki, you'll need to see it to believe it. Is anyone else home?"

"Kasumi," Nabiki said. "Daddy's off to the bars."

"Without the panda?"

Nabiki rolled her eyes. "He said something about not getting thrown out of the good ones for once."

"Okay, well, Kasumi should see this too." Akane's voice grew faint. "Are you sure about this? If anyone sees anything…well if you're sure. Nabiki? Um, he's with us."

"Who is with you?" Nabiki asked.

"I am," came a voice behind her.

Nabiki would always be grateful that she was in full Ice Queen mode at that moment. Anything less than an iron-clad grip on her emotions would have forced her to do something very embarrassing, like scream, turn around, and fall all over herself. Instead she blinked, turned around slowly, and looked the man over. "Old American guy in spandex?" she asked.

"That's him," Akane confirmed. "See you soon." Akane hung up.

Theo nodded politely. "We should collect your sister. I'm here to teleport the two of you to the ruins."

"Oh my, that sounds exciting."

Theo jumped and spun to stare at the beatifically smiling Kasumi. "Hello," he said quickly. "My name is Theodore Diggers."

"A pleasure to meet you. Do you have time for tea?"

"Um, no," Theo said apologetically. "I'm afraid there is a time issue."

"Is this going to be dangerous?" Nabiki asked.

"Not at all," Theo assured. Then he started glowing and ripped a hole in the air. "That's it."

Nabiki bit back the sarcasm and walked over to the rift. "You're sure this is safe?"

Kasumi walked right on through without hesitating.

Nabiki sighed. "Why couldn't Akane have just taken the money?" she muttered, then walked through.


	4. Family

Chapter 4: Family

Akane smiled and waved. "Hi, Nabiki."

Nabiki stared.

Akane blinked. "Um, Nabiki?"

Ranma laughed. "I wondered what it would take ta shock her."

Nabiki shook herself out of it and glared at Ranma. "You want me to call your debts in?" she snapped.

"I'm broke and you know it," he shot back. "'Sides, you're smart enough to know that's done." He flicked his pigtail. "After this, anything you bring down on me hits Akane, too. And you don't put family at risk."

Nabiki scowled but nodded a moment later. "You're right, I don't." She sighed and looked back at her little sister, who was towering over her as a half-feline woman. Kuno would pay her a fortune for a picture. Not just overpay, Nabiki was fairly certain that a five photo spread would pay their bills for a year.

Nabiki looked Ranma over. "So what, only half a dose for you?"

"Huh?" Ranma asked.

Nabiki waved at his hair. "New style, but you're not fuzzy."

"Oh. Nah, we got hit the same."

"What?" Nabiki asked.

Britanny put herself square in the middle of Nabiki's line of sight. Nabiki flinched back from the towering catgirl. "Watch," Britnny instructed. A few moments later she was human, looking up at Nabiki. "Satisfied?"

Nabiki blinked rapidly for several seconds before her brain rebooted properly. She sat down heavily. "I think I need to hear the whole story."

"It's a hell of a one," Ranma said. "Even by my standards."

* * *

"You weren't kidding," Nabiki grumbled. "Dammit Saotome, do you have any idea what it will take to fix this?"

"That's why we called you in," Ranma said.

Nabiki ran her hand through her hair. "And you don't even know how they're different from other weres?" she asked Theo.

"Not...completely," he admitted.

"Ugh," Nabiki sighed. "Spin doctoring is ten times harder when you don't have all the facts." Which wasn't to say it was impossible. Nabiki allowed herself a groan and felt her head hit the table. She was not herself a betting woman – the gambling she arranged was always hedged solidly to make her money no matter what. But with something this big, this obvious, and this paradigmatically relevant, she was pretty sure she was playing the wrong side of the odds.

"Spin what?" Akane asked.

"American phrase," Nabiki said. "Basically, it means we need to take what happened and phrase it in a way that won't cause all-out war between the fiancees."

"The who?" Gina asked.

"_Later_," Akane said. "New problem first. Old problems later."

"Good idea," Nabiki agreed. "The problem here is that we don't even know exactly what we're really phrasing. It's like trying to fit something into a box, but we have to pick out a box before we know how big the thing is."

"So we go with the biggest box we've got," Ranma said with conviction. "Um...what does that mean?"

"That means being as vague as we can," Nabiki said. "That only works for a smokescreen. Vagueness invites questions. We don't want anyone thinking too hard about this."

"That...doesn't sound likely," Gina says. "This is...kinda...big. And obvious. And weird."

"I turn into a girl," Ranma reminded her.

"You're both right," Nabiki interrupted. She sat up, a few ideas falling into place making her think this might not be a fool's errand. "If this had happened to anyone else, there would be no hope. But it happened to _Ranma Saotome_. He attracts weirdness as a matter of course. Give it a day or two and the only people that will care are the Kunos."

"Who?"

"Don't ask," Ranma groaned.

"Right," Nabiki said, getting attention back to what she was saying. "The real problem is that Akane had the same thing happen to her. Everyone will take note of something that happens to both of you at once."

"Yeah, we figured that out," Akane grumbled. "Ranma demonstrated with Ryoga."

"So we say it happened because of Akane," Nabiki finished, a small smile appearing.

"So we...wait, what?" Akane yelped.

"Simple, little sister. If something happened to Ranma, and also happened to you, people will assume it happened when you were together."

"Right, we know that, that's the problem," Ranma grumbled. "Get to the point."

"Simple. If something happened to **Akane** and also happened to Ranma, what is the assumption?"

Ranma thought about that for a minute.

Ryoga was just completely lost.

Kasumi put her hand to her mouth. "Oh my. I suppose it would mean Akane was kidnapped and Ranma went off to rescue her."

"And Kasumi wins the prize," Nabiki said with satisfaction. "If we say that Akane got into trouble on the training trip, everything will fit into that expectation. Any consequences will be shrugged off by people just happy they aren't part of Ranma's life like Akane is."

"And the fiancees?" Ranma asked.

"Will try and use this to prove that they're less trouble than Akane is," Nabiki mused. "They're already pushing that they're better martial artists, cooks, whatever, so not much change there."

"We still have to deal with the Kunos," Akane pointed out.

"Why?" Nabiki challenged. "I've dealt with Kuno-chan longer than either of you. As far as you two are concerned, he'll blame Ranma no matter what. At best, he'll try to rescue you and cure the spell Ranma put on you. At worst...the usual."

"I think I'd rather deal with the usual than his attempts at a cure," Akane said, shuddering briefly.

Ranma nodded in agreement. "Kodachi'll be the same, right?"

"She'll focus on your girl side as the culprit, but yes," Nabiki said. "But she's crazy enough that anything is possible."

"Great. How do we get this started?"

"We, Ranma, meaning you and Akane and me, don't. I get started as soon as I get back to Nerima, preferably a few days before you do. I'll be spreading rumors that Akane ran into some kind of magic cat and you tried to rescue her. Don't do any of this shifting stuff in public until we know more; we have to take this slow. Um, anything else I should be aware of?"

"Silver," Gina, Britanny, and Theo said simultaneously.

"What's wrong with silver?" Nabiki asked.

"Short version, it'll mess you up bad," Britanny said with a grimace. "Just touching the stuff is asking for trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Akane asked warily.

"The quickly lethal kind," Theo said seriously. "Silver is a very magically important metal. For weres, mere contact burns you down to the soul. Skin contact hurts but isn't outright dangerous. Get it in below the skin, though, like on a knife or so help you a bullet, and without quick, trained, and specific attention you will die in short order."

Ranma, Akane, and Ryoga all blanched at that.

"So Akane is not inheriting Mother's jewelry," Kasumi mused. "I'll need to put away a few heirlooms."

"And I have to figure out if it will be more or less dangerous to keep that a secret," Nabiki groaned. "Probably should get that out in the open, but what if Kuno comes at you with a silver katana? Or Mousse?"

Ranma turned to Britanny. "Just touching silver would hurt?"

"Worse than fire," Britanny confirmed.

"Okay, yeah, that would be a problem," Ranma agreed.

"And then there's Cologne," Nabiki said.

"Wait, let me guess. In the past three thousand years of Amazon lore, they know exactly how to fight were-cheetahs," Akane grumbled.

"Wouldn't surprise me at all," Ranma agreed.

Gina blinked. "You guys know Amazons?"

Nabiki smiled slightly. "Remember last month's journal?"

Gina frowned a moment in concentration. "Strangers in the Mountains of China? Yes, I was going to swing by the 'Musk' and ask if they knew anything about werecreatures."

"The Amazons live near 'em," Ranma added. "An' you don't want to go to the Musk. They'd probably kidnap you to make you a bride or something."

"They'd what?" Gina asked, surprised.

"Nabiki didn't really see that much of the trio that came out here, but yeah. They're girl-happy," Ranma said with a shudder. "Especially given your, ahm, er..."

"Breasts," Ryoga supplied, blushing heavily.

Akane malleted him idly. "Pervert." She looked at Ranma and tried to decide if he was being perverted, too.

"Yeah, what they said," Ranma agreed.

Akane decided to err on the side of caution. So she malleted Ranma, too.

"Cross the Musk off the list," Gina recommended.

"Yeah I'm just going to burn the list," Britanny muttered.

"What about silver compounds?" Nabiki asked suddenly.

"Huh?" Britanny asked.

"Well silver is an element," Nabiki pointed out. "If silver alloys are so dangerous, what about silver compounds?"

"Mostly safe," Gina said. "The reactive properties are unambiguously tied to electron cloud distribution. Molecules including silver atoms should be neutrally reactive, with a theoretical tipping point in the upper-ninetieth percentile of silver by atomic mass. Any sufficiently pure compound would decompose into silver and impurities almost instantly so that's a moot point."

"What?" Ranma asked intelligently.

"She said that silver compounds are safe," Britanny translated.

"Okay," Nabiki mused. "Can I get a lift back to Nerima? I need to prep the field."

"Not a problem," Theo said. He lifted his hand and flattened his palm against the air, pushing open a return portal to Nabiki's bedroom.

Nabiki nodded. "Thank you. Sis, Ranma, stay out of the cities for at least a week. And try and call before you show up, just to be safe."

"What about Ryoga?" Ranma asked. Kasumi and, to Ranma's mild surprise, Genma both took advantage of the open portal and slipped home.

Nabiki looked at the were-pig. "I don't care," she said emotionlessly. Ryoga flinched. Nabiki turned her back and left before her cruel smirk forced itself into her expression. After all Ryoga had put her little sister through, the realization of his own insignificance was just the start of Nabiki's revenge.

* * *

Ranma looked out over the city. He was up in a rather tall tree, the claws of one hand embedded in the trunk for stability. He looked to Akane, who was in an identical pose. "Ready to go home?" he asked.

Akane nodded and offered a grin full of teeth. "The question is, is Nerima ready for us?"

Ranma pulled free a cellphone. "I guess we'll find out," he said.

Akane waited for Ranma to get Nabiki on the phone, and her mind drifted over the past week. They hadn't actually left the mountain; with so much uncertainty in their enchantments, Dr. Diggers wasn't willing to risk a teleport. That hadn't stopped Ryoga from getting lost; the werepig vanished within an hour of Nabiki's departure. Good riddance. Akane wasn't in a murderous rage anymore, but if "P-chan" showed his face with anything less than a formal apology of some kind, things would get ugly. Maybe not even that; Akane's feelings were still too tangled to make a decent guess at her reactions.

In any case, Dr. Diggers had brought another werecat to them, a jagwere named Gar. He'd performed the tests he wanted, which as far as Akane could tell was just making them glow a bit, and reported that Ranma and Akane had a lycanthropy-like enchantment. As far as he could tell it was identical in nearly every way, except one small part of it was...he didn't like the word "missing" but compared it to a bit of fabric that was a undyed instead of striped pink and green. A blank, a piece that completed the pattern but didn't actually do anything. And his supposition...Ranma and Akane couldn't create thralls anymore than they themselves were Britanny's thralls. Other than that, anything that applied to the werecheetahs of old, so it was for these two. In theory.

It was a fascinating, hopeful result to the archmage. To Ranma and Akane, it was a burden they didn't know what to do with. There was a chance that they had the power to restore a lost clan with a proud, dignified history and traditions. The martial artist's code didn't exactly cover such things, but it was certainly in keeping with the idea of defending the defenseless. Unless, of course, the archmage was wrong, and instead they had a slave-making bite. That was rather against the code. And it wasn't like there was such a thing as an "acceptable" test case.

Theo's observation that Ranma and Akane had other ways of creating new werecheetahs was met with a mallet. Not that Akane was denying her feelings for Ranma, but to have such a new acquaintance speculate on their future sex life sounded perverted, so he deserved it. Probably.

Most of the rest of the week was with Britanny. The older werecheetah had taken it upon herself to teach them everything she knew about what their bodies could do. They were joined by Brianna, who took a moment to explain her strange history and got down to walking them through the differences between being a human and a werecheetah from the unique perspective of a woman who had been both.

They'd kept Nabiki up to date, of course. Cell reception was a hit or miss in the mountains, but that's what super-genius friends are for.

Ranma hit the speakerphone button. "You're on speaker," he announced.

"Good," came Nabiki's voice. "You there Akane?"

"I'm here," Akane confirmed.

"Bad news. I'd tell you to stay away, but this isn't going to get better until they get it out of their system, and I bet on you handling it now more than the house surviving it later."

"What happened?" Akane gasped. "I thought they were buying the story!"

"That you had been captured by a hair stylist prince?" Nabiki asked drily. "Sadly, yes they bought that. But last night Ryoga came into town."

"Oh no," Ranma groaned.

"It turns out his curse just locks him out of his human form now," Nabiki continued.

Ranma nodded. His own curse was unchanged; he had all three forms of a werecheetah under full control, and his gender was decided by the whims of aquatic thermodynamics in each form. "So he can have hands in cursed form, as long as he stays away...from...oh no," he groaned.

"Right. He got lost and walked right into Furinkan in full werepig hubrid form."

"Then what happened?" Akane asked, sounding pained.

"Kuno attacked the pig demon, who defeated him effortlessly. Then Ukyo faced him. Ryoga managed to find some hot water. Then he told her, and the rest of the school, that you were werecheetahs."

"Which Kuno and Kodachi have heard by now," Ranma said dully.

"Shampoo was delivering a Hawaiian ramen to the principal at the time," Nabiki continued.

"She went back to the old ghoul and asked her what a werecheetah is," Ranma concluded in the same deadpan tone.

"And Mousse was listening," Akane agreed in her own monotone.

"And Cologne wants to talk to both of you as soon as you get back," Nabiki said, not disagreeing with the entirely correct predictions of the mess that was their lives.

"What's the fallout?" Akane asked after a moment.

"Well, like I said, Cologne wants to talk to you. And she must be keeping Shampoo and Mousse under control because I haven't heard anything from her. Ukyo is scared about her chances, and desperate. Kuno is convinced you're a demon, Ranma, instead of just some sorcerer or whatever his delusion was. He might step up to genuine lethal force now. Kodachi, same to you, Akane. Probably a good thing that they don't know what is actually lethal to weres."

"Are you sure Sasuke isn't hiding in the house?" Ranma asked. "Or Gosunkugi?"

"Yes they are, which is why I'm in the dojo," Nabiki replied. "Daddy wants to talk to you both, but Kasumi has convinced him that you're...mostly normal."

"Mostly?"

"You _are_ Ranma Saotome," Nabiki noted.

"Fair enough. So what happens now?"

"When you get here, the spies spread the word. I give us a minute and a half before the first wave. Half the outer wall and three doors as casualties. I already have the contractor on standby. Try to get the fight out of the house as fast as you can, though."

"We'll try," Ranma said tiredly. "Okay, we'll be there soon."

"Not too soon," Nabiki said. "Human forms only, remember?"

"Of course I remember," Ranma lied.

Akane ducked her head and blushed under her fur. Weird how this body felt like her own more than her human form did. Freaky werecheetah enchantments messing with her head.

Ranma hung up the phone and shifted back to human. It was easy after as much practice as they'd had, and the night under the full moon had helped soak up 'lunar energy' or whatever it was their enchantments fed on.

Now, to face the music.

* * *

Ranma and Akane were about three blocks from the dojo when it happened.

"Son-in-law."

Ranma and Akane stopped and turned to the voice. Ranma's face was hard, Akane's was wary. "Old ghoul," Ranma said back.

Cologne hopped out of the alley and peered at Ranma's hair. "So it is true. I had thought the Japanese werecats were a myth."

Ranma said nothing and shifted into a ready pose. If the elder was here to fight, well between Britanny and Gar he'd had a pretty thorough education in making use of his hybrid form. He could buy Akane time to escape, if nothing else.

Cologne waved away the concern. "I am not here to fight you, Ranma. I just needed to see for myself. You realize this changes everything."

Ranma snorted. "Really? I thought turning into a giant cat was perfectly normal," he said sarcastically.

Cologne's eyes flicked to Akane and back. "Shampoo will need to be part of what I must tell you both. Will you come to the Nekohanten tomorrow?"

"So you can ambush us?" Akane asked angrily. "Drug Ranma and take him back to China, try and kill me? Do we seem that stupid?"

"Akane Tendo, I swear on my life's blood and the honor of the Chinese Amazons, my invitation is nothing more than it seems – this is a matter of great importance that needs actual talk, not misguided action. I will not instigate such an attack."

Akane and Ranma traded a glance. "You've never made an oath like that before, ghoul," Ranma pointed out.

"You've never been half cat before, boy," Cologne returned.

Ranma shrugged, accepting the point. "It's that important?"

"Incomprehensibly so," Cologne agreed solemnly.

Ranma looked to Akane, who looked to Cologne. "We'll be there," she said. "And we'll bring Nabiki."

Cologne smiled slightly. "Ramen special for three, then. Make sure you do come – I do not know how long I can keep Mousse from finding enough silver to coat a sword."

Ranma grimaced and Akane shivered. "I was afraid it was something like that," Ranma admitted.

"Indeed. He knows I have forbidden him to challenge you again, but this has never stopped him before. It is only a matter of time, unless we act first."

Ranma watched Cologne pogo off. "Y'know she ain't on our side, Akane."

"Cologne has always been on her own side," Akane observed. "But I don't think she wants us dead."

"Yeah," Ranma agreed. "Come on, we need to get home."

* * *

Akane walked in through the front door alone. "I'm home!" she called. She made her way to the family room and saw Soun and Genma playing shogi. Nabiki was at the table with a cup of tea and a manga.

Soun got up and hugged Akane. "Akane, I'm glad you're home safely," he said.

"Hi, Daddy," Akane sighed happily.

Soun held Akane at arm's length and looked her over. "You look well. You've been eating properly?"

"Of course, Daddy," Akane sighed.

Soun carefully held a bit of Akane's blonde hair and rolled it through his fingers. "And...?"

Akane nodded. "Yeah, I'm a werecheetah now," she admitted. There was an edge of fear in her voice. Of all the people that could reject what happened, her father was the most horrifying possibility.

Soun looked from her hair to her eyes, his face filled with concern. The goofy, lazy crybaby was pushed aside; the man looking at Akane was the man who dedicated himself to his art, who married a woman he loved and raised three beautiful daughters, who stood by the martial artist's code and stood by his family even should it cost him his life. "Are you okay with this?" he asked seriously.

Akane looked back into those eyes, those eyes of the father from before their mother's death...and trembled. She felt tears come to her eyes, and she nodded. "Yeah, Daddy," she sniffed. "I'm still me. That's the important thing, isn't it?"

Soun wrapped Akane up in a bone-crushing hug. "Yes," he said. "Yes it is."

Nabiki sipped her tea and smiled. Their father crying manly tears? For once it actually seemed manly.

Kasumi smiled herself. Of course she had known exactly how it would have gone. The past week, Soun had been very diligent about finding the few bits of silver around the house and replacing them, no matter how hard it was to do so. That old picture of their mother looked better in a gold frame anyway, in her opinion.

Genma looked up from his cheating and considered his friend and his daughter-in-law-to-be. He decided not to interrupt the tender moment just yet, but after what he felt was a reasonable pause he spoke up. "Where's that son of mine?" he asked gruffly.

Akane had wished for the moment to last just a bit longer, but that was a reasonable question. She wiped her eyes as Soun let her go. "Ranma's taking care of...an issue," she said vaguely.

* * *

Ranma finished tying Gosunkugi's feet together and sat him down next to Sasuke. "Now, let's go over this again, shall we? Me and Akane have a lot of stuff we need to hash out with our family, right?"

The two spies nodded frantically. Bound and gagged, they had little else they could do.

"And we don't want any interruptions, do we?"

Shaking heads.

"Good. I'm glad we understand eachother. That makes me so happy. So is Kuno going to find out that we're back?"

Shaking heads.

"Kodachi?" Shake. "Shampoo?" Shake. "Mousse?" Shake. "Ukyo?" Shake. "...did I miss anyone?"

Gosunkugi and Sasuke looked at eachother. "Mrrf?"

"Oh, right. The Principal or Miss Hinako?"

Shake.

"Excellent." Ranma smiled and undid one of the knots on Gosunkugi. "And you know what happens if you break this little agreement, right?"

Gosunkugi fainted.

"Eh, close enough."

* * *

Nabiki stared at Akane. "He's what?"

"He's cutting off Gosunkugi and Sasuke and making sure they don't bother us for a day or so," Akane repeated. "Why, what's wrong?"

Nabiki shivered. "When did he learn how to think ahead like that?"

"I don't know," Akane admitted. "He's been like that all week. Thinking ahead, planning, even a little insightful."

"If turning into a werecat gave him some brains, where do I sign up?" Nabiki grumbled.

"Hmph," Genma snorted. "You underestimate the mental aspects of the Saotome Style. I trained the boy to be able to take in a situation and react to it quickly, decisively, and smartly. You think he would have survived everything if he couldn't think and plan on the fly?"

"Well he hasn't acted like this before!" Akane objected.

"When did he have the chance? Everything that's happened to him has honed his improvisation skills, but he's never had enough information early enough to make anything other than short term plans before."

Akane and Nabiki mulled that over while the door opened. "I'm home," Ranma announced.

Nabiki looked up while Ranma strolled into the room. "How much time did you buy?"

"Probably a day from Gosunkugi, but Sasuke is harder to judge," Ranma said. "He'll probably spend a few hours wandering around fretting, and if we're lucky he'll decide Kuno will forgive him if he brings back detailed information instead of fast information. If we aren't lucky, Kuno will have already called him and is on his way."

Everyone cringed and waited for the Blue Thunder to announce himself.

"...huh," Akane said after nothing happened.

"Dinner's ready!" Kasumi called, entering from the kitchen with a serving plate of...

"Is that...salmon?" Akane asked, eyes bright.

Ranma licked his lips slightly, suddenly feeling rather hungry.

Genma considered that his sense of impending doom was telling him _not_ to try and steal fish from a werecat.

* * *

The meal concluded in relative peace. Akane broke Ranma's old record for speed, but maintained a level of dignity in the process by being accurate and precise. Ranma, meanwhile, moved so quickly Genma never had a chance to consider the theft of food. He frowned slightly and concentrated on his own meal for a change.

Finally he set down his chopsticks. "Ranma."

Ranma glanced at Genma and stilled. Genma's eyes were closed and he wasn't facing Ranma. His hands were on his lap and he had a carefully neutral expression. "Yeah, pops?" he asked warily.

"The dojo in ten minutes. We need to decide if that new body of yours has thrown off your moves."

Ranma ran that thought through his head. He ducked his head, closed his eyes, and smiled. "Sure. Thanks, pops."

"Hmph," Genma said. He got up slowly and walked to the yard. "Just don't be late."

Akane watched Genma leave. "What was that about?" she asked.

"Bein' a dad," Ranma said, getting up himself.

Akane watched Ranma leave. "Huh?"

Kasumi blinked. "Oh my, you don't think Uncle Saotome shows his affection by fighting Ranma, do you?"

"Yeah that's exactly what I think, and so do you sis," Nabiki sighed.

Soun nodded solemnly. "Such is the way of paternal love in the world of martial arts."

Akane didn't know about _that_, but she still allowed a smile over the brief glimpse of Genma's soft side.


	5. The Insanity Breaks

Chapter 5: The Insanity Breaks

The next morning Ranma came down the stairs. "Akane, Nabiki?"

"Here, Ranma," the girls called. "We have breakfast."

Ranma walked to the table and slid into his place. "Smells good."

"Sure that isn't what's left of last night's fish you're smelling?" Nabiki asked with a sly smile.

Ranma considered that. "Nah, that smell isn't this strong."

"You usually don't sleep in this late," Soun commented from his place.

Ranma shrugged. "For once the old man didn't want to spar this morning."

Akane thought back to the thrashing Ranma had given Genma. The elder Saotome had declared Ranma's mastery of the Saotome style to be adequate before passing out. "That doesn't surprise me,"Akane agreed.

Nabiki nodded slightly. "We'd better get ready to go soon. After the Amazons we still need to get you two ready for school tomorrow."

"Ready?" Ranma asked, eating a bit faster.

"Well Daddy desilvered the house while you were away, but I haven't been able to get rid of it at school. I need to show you places that could be dangerous for you."

"Great," Ranma grumbled. "What's a school doing with silver anyway?"

"Chemistry and physics," Nabiki said simply. "Also some of the athletic trophies. A few other places, too."

Ranma sighed. Staying away from the crazy nerds that kept setting off explosions sounded fine, but that trophy case was right outside the lockerroom. "Great," he repeated.

* * *

Ranma walked into the Nekohanten in front of Akane, with Nabiki in the rear. He wasn't tense, but ready. Cologne's promise to talk, just talk, wasn't enough to get him to drop his guard when he had the Tendo girls with him.

Cologne was sitting at a table with Shampoo and Mousse. The young Amazons' eyes were locked on Ranma's hair. Nabiki noted the CLOSED sign outside and ramped up the seriousness of this meeting a notch. The Amazons had no intentions to make the restaurant a career, but Nabiki was well aware that an isolated village in China had limited financial resources. Cologne had to turn a profit with the restaurant just to survive, and turning away the weekend lunch crowd was doing no favors for her bottom line.

Ranma pulled a chair up to the table and sat. "You wanted me here," he said simply.

"Airen?" Shampoo asked, still looking at the hair.

"So you're finally a monster in body, Saotome," Mousse snarled.

Nabiki coughed as Ranma and Akane both growled at Mousse. "We're not here to trade insults or blows."

Cologne smiled slightly as the martial artists settled down, with a few glares but that was to be expected. "Peacemaker is a rare role for you, Miss Tendo."

"It's a necessary one," Nabiki said simply.

Shampoo bit back her own opinion; Mercenary Girl was after information she could sell about airen. "Is true Airen is werecat?"

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, that's true," he said.

"So your nekoken is cured," Cologne observed.

Ranma blinked. "How did you know that?"

"It was a probable outcome only," Cologne confessed. "The nekoken is not of our village, but after you revealed it had been inflicted upon you I sought out what I could find about it. Your feline persona was a defense mechanism against the trauma of the experience. As a werecat, you have genuine feline instincts and abilities. Since you are clearly not overwhelmed by them, it seems likely that your feline persona has merely integrated itself into those instincts. This is a unique situation, however, so I would not advise you to seek to trigger an episode."

"Mmm." Ranma mulled that over. "But you didn't get me here to chat about my nekoken. What do you know, old ghoul?"

"Not as much as the Diggers, I believe. That is the name Ryoga gave the Americans, yes?" Cologne glanced around the various nods. "I have never heard of were_cheetahs_ before, but the Amazon histories speak of were_tigers_. So do our laws."

Shampoo and Mousse looked surprised that there were laws, while Ranma and Akane tightened up and looked ready for bad news. Nabiki tilted her head slightly. "What do your histories say?" she asked.

"Weretigers came from what is now northern China in the height of the Age of Magic," Cologne said. "We don't know why or how they came into being. In the beginning they made large numbers of thralls, but that stopped relatively quickly. The last of the scattered clans eventually left this world these past few hundred years, that we know of anyway. We think the near-extinction of their animal population made it impossible for them to retain secrecy from the wider world."

Ranma breathed out a "huh" as he processed that. "So what does that mean for us?"

"We didn't know, until Ryoga, that there were other werecreatures in the world," Cologne grumbled. "Our laws are not written with this knowledge in mind. 'Were' and 'werecat' and 'weretiger' are used interchangeably in places. Fortunately we are a small tribe, so the actual laws are few and fairly direct."

"Death squads?" Ranma asked.

"No death squads," Cologne replied. "There are ultimately two laws we need concern ourselves with. One, an Amazon that is turned into a thrall shall be considered murdered by the werecat that claimed her, with appropriate repercussion to follow."

Akane frowned. "You consider a thrall dead?"

"Any Amazon whose will has been sundered in such a way is considered dead," Cologne replied gravely. "The few times it has happened, we have sought to make it a literal death to release her soul from imprisonment. Most thanked their killers in their final moments."

Akane shuddered, but Ranma nodded. "I don't like it, but I get it," he said.

"And the second law is that a werecat is not considered a cursed human," Cologne said.

None of the Japanese teens knew what to make of that, but it clearly meant something to Shampoo as she let out a strangled wail.

Ranma looked from Shampoo to Cologne and back. "Wait, what does that mean?"

"It means, Ranma Saotome, heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, that you can never be an Amazon, nor can any Amazon claim you as husband. Shampoo's claim on you is broken."

Ranma sat ramrod straight as that echoed in his mind. He...had lost a fiancee. That should make him intensely happy. Shouldn't it?

He looked to Shampoo, who had tears from her eyes. She ran from the table, but didn't make it far before she collapsed and retched. The girl that had put him through so much trouble...

Nabiki looked to Cologne and blocked out the Amazon girl. "What about the kiss of death?" she asked coldly.

Cologne looked back with equal iron. "Shampoo could never kill Ranma," she said simply. "The council of elders will need to rule on her pledge to kill 'her' now that marriage is no longer an option. But whatever the cost to herself, she will not go through with it."

"But," Ranma whispered, "her honor is satisfied, isn't it? She doesn't have to marry me anymore."

"Have to?" Cologne asked. "Oh, Ranma, it isn't that simple. Shampoo chased you out of a duty of honor, yes, but do you think she stayed here for such a simple reason?"

Ranma looked to Cologne, confused and frightened. "Yes?"

Cologne sighed. "Shampoo hasn't been chasing her honor since the waterproofed soap incident. Maybe before that. She cares for you, Ranma, more than she cares for herself. More, I fear, than she cares for life itself."

Akane looked at the broken girl and punched Mousse. "What are you doing?" she snarled.

Mousse honestly didn't have an answer for that. This was the best news he'd heard in a year! This was terrible! This was an amazing opportunity! He should kill Saotome for making Shampoo cry! "I...I should help her," he mumbled, getting up unsteadily.

Ranma worked his mouth slowly, trying to find anything to say. He never knew what to say to an upset girl, and Shampoo was so far beyond "upset" that even his foot-in-mouth knew better than to say anything carelessly.

"Ranchan!"

Ranma had never been so grateful to the horrifying mess that was his life. "Ukyo!?"

Ranma's "cute fiancee" was in the door. She ran over to Ranma. "Ranchan! I heard you were back! Why didn't you come to see me first?"

Nabiki sighed. "Konatsu. We missed Konatsu."

"Yeah, well, at least he isn't going to tell everyone in Nerima," Ranma grumbled.

Ukyo stood by Ranma and ran her fingers through his hair. "So cute! Can I see your kitty form?"

Ranma sighed. "At least this time you aren't going to drown me," he grumbled.

Ukyo giggled. "Weeelllll?"

Cologne smiled slightly. "I confess I am curious as well, Ranma."

Ranma sighed. "Fine." He reached into himself and pulled out the cat.

Ukyo's eyes widened. Fur grew over Ranma with shocking speed. He shot up to seven feet, maybe more, his loose clothing stretching over his frame. Muscles Ukyo wasn't even sure most people _had_ gained definition enough to be seen through his shirt. His face didn't change that much, a bit of change to his nose but nothing that could really be called a muzzle, although those eyestripes were kinda attractive. She almost missed the tail until it thrashed behind him. "Well?" he asked.

"At last the demon reveals himself!"

Ranma gave Ukyo a flat look. "You didn't have Konatsu make sure you weren't followed."

Ukyo put her hand behind her head, laughed a couple times, and pulled her combat spatula. "Not a problem, Ranchan. It's just Kuno."

"OH HOHOHOHOHOHO! Ranma-sama! I am here to save you from that wretched Tendo fiend!"

"Both Kunos," Ukyo corrected. "Still not a problem."

"It is if they've gone to lethal tactics," Nabiki snapped, heading for the back.

Mousse followed her with his gaze...such as it was. "Lethal?" he asked a nearby plant.

"It seems they think werecreatures are demons to be slain," Nabiki pointed out helpfully. "Are the kitchen walls reinforced at all?"

Shampoo pushed Mousse away and turned towards the door of the Nekohanten. At the same moment, Kuno slashed the door with a katana and kicked the broken halves inwards in a suitably dramatic entrance. "No one raises a weapon to my husband without getting through me first," she growled.

* * *

Shampoo didn't really know what was going on. Ranma was cursed to turn into a cat, like her, but different. It could bring them together. Except the kitchen destroyer was more like Ranma, too. Great-grandmother talked about werecreatures, which Shampoo only remembered from the old stories, the one she didn't really pay attention to. And now she wasn't married to her husband. And then Spatula Girl showed up and Ranma turned into a half-cat. And now the stupid stick boy was here.

Shampoo dropped into a crouch, wild eyes locked with the delusional Kuno male's.

She knew how to handle stupid stick boy, at least.

Kuno grinned. "You are the whore to this demon!? Truly the Heavens have blessed me, their champion, to strike you both down!" He charged Shampoo with a flurry of strikes. "Be warned, devil-harlot! I won't let you date me, even if you win!"

Shampoo was put off for a moment when she recognized that Stick Boy had evolved into Sword Boy, but he still hadn't been trained worth a damn by Amazon standards. She stepped inside his reach with casual ease and brought the palm of her hand into contact with his chin. Kuno went flying.

Koachi didn't pay attention to the fight between Kuno and Shampoo, instead squaring off against the true corrupter of her Ranma-sama. "Tendo Akane," she drawled in her formal tones, "I will give you a moment to make peace with your ancestors."

Akane grinned ferally. "You think you can take me?"

Kodachi spun her ribbon around her and grabbed one end, holding it taught and easily seen. The pale blue gleamed a faint, wet green under the restaurant lights. "Your corruption ends today."

Ranma took a step forward. He didn't know what that poison was, but it was too much! Cologne's staff stopped him. He turned to look at the miniature elder. She stood beside him, looking at both the battle of flashing steel and the prebattle of ribbon and poison. "A master never interferes in his disciple's fight," she admonished.

Ranma blinked repeatedly. "But I'm..."

"Not a master?" Cologne asked. "Maybe not by the terms of those fools you called masters. But it is the skill you have and the role you chose. I'm afraid that training is the easy part, Ranma."

Ranma looked at the fight as Kodachi finally made her move against Akane. The poisoned ribbon hit nothing but air; Akane jumped back a step and then charged in close before Kodachi could overcome the momentum of her impractical weapon. "I can't just do nothing," he moaned.

"That is exactly what you must do if she is to grow," Cologne said sympathetically. "Even if she loses. Even if she is injured. Anything less than a killing blow...it is your duty as a martial artist to do nothing."

"But...I...I..."

"You love her," Cologne said.

"Erk!"

"Anyone with more sense than these two," she waved at the Kunos, "could see that. As her fiance your duty is to protect her, naturally." It wasn't a duty the Amazon people held, but one did not live as long as Cologne without realizing that other cultures had their own norms, at least some of which deserved respect. "So. As a _man_, what is your duty?"

"I..." Ranma faltered. Akane gave Kodachi a solid hit that sent the gymnast spinning away. It was a mistake to let the range open up, it brought the poison ribbon back into play, but it was still an impressive hit against the more nimble opponent. "I don't..." Ranma muttered.

"What would she want you to do?"

Ranma watched Akane lunge and Kodachi with a flying kick that made use of the open range between them to build up power. It was a slow attack, doomed to miss, then Akane landed in a crouch and her kick became a sweep that sent Kodachi to the floor. Ranma had a moment to see into Akane's eyes as she spun in the execution of her attack.

Ranma smiled slightly. "A master never interferes in his disciple's fight, huh?" he asked bitterly.

"You have chosen to walk a path that is harder than you know," Cologne said quietly. "But it is worth it in the end." Satisfied that Ranma could care for the Tendo girl, she turned her full attention to her heir's battle.

It was almost painful to watch. Unlike his sister, Tatewaki never varied his attacks or came from an angle. His was the art of the straight charge. It would make him formidable in a kendo match, pressing his opponent within the rules and limitations of the sport, but in a fight? Shampoo slipped into his reach again and laid him out with a spinning strike to a kidney. Again.

That wasn't why Cologne was worried. No, it was Shampoo's expression. Dead, emotionless. She was fighting because an enemy had shown himself, and for no other reason. She would need days to get over the shock. Cologne was glad Ranma had seen that; it was her plan for it to be so. Akane, too. Shampoo would need Ranma's kindness to be made whole again, whatever form that healing took. Both werecheetahs needed to understand that, so Ranma could suppress his jerk instincts and Akane could suppress her jealousy. Now, all they had to do was deal with the Kunos.

Cologne hadn't counted on two facts. First, plans had a tendency to fall apart around Ranma. Second, Ranma's plans had been going well, so the cosmic balance demanded that something end very, very badly.

Mousse threw his chains. "I'll save you, my Shampoo!"

"Mousse you blind idiot!" Akane raged as she was tied up by a few bolas and heavy chains.

"Now I have you!" Kodachi shrieked. Her ribbon lashed out at the immobilized Akane.

Akane shifted to her hybrid form. Most of the change was hidden by the chains, but there was clearly a lot more under them. Stronger, too, because a few links were already twisting under the strain of Akane pulling at them. But it wasn't going to be fast enough to evade the ribbon.

Ukyo's battle spatula, on the other hand, proved more than capable of intercepting the flimsy weapon. "Love the look, sugar," the chef drawled. "Why don't you take five and let me play for a bit?"

Kodachi pulled her ribbon back. "You defend the harlot? You hate her as much as I!"

Ukyo took a solid grip on her spatula and assumed a modified guard stance. "Can't say I wouldn't be happy if she dropped out of Ranchan's life," she admitted.

"Thanks a lot," Akane muttered, another link giving way. She cursed to herself. How many chains did Mousse throw on her anyway!?

"But she's still my friend," Ukyo finished.

The silence was broken only by Tatewaki removing himself from a Tatewaki-shaped crater in the ceiling. "I...fight...on..."

Akane stared, her struggles forgotten for a moment. "Eh?"

"You blew up her wedding," Kodachi pointed out, a rare moment of lucidity breaking the flow of the fight.

"I, uh, I'm not the best friend in the world," Ukyo admitted.

Kodachi thought that over for a moment. "Whatever." She lashed out with her ribbon. "You were next anyway! OHHOHOHOHOHO!"

Ukyo smiled and shifted her grip. She swung her spatula in an arc, the flat head swatting the poisoned ribbon up and away. "You think I haven't trained to defeat this attack!?" she yelled. The spatula's momentum pushed her hands into a new grip, which let her check that momentum and swing the weapon up over and down, the bladed edge slicing clean through the ribbon and cutting its length by half. "There! Now, do you surrender or want to make a go of it with your clubs?"

"Look out!" Ranma yelled.

"Huh?" Ukyo asked. "Ow! What?" She looked to her hand and saw that the fluttering, uncontrolled ribon had sliced open her hand...and left a green slick next to the wound. Ukyo's blood ran cold as numbness spread up her arm. She looked at Ranma, terror in her eyes. He seemed...so far away... "Ran...chan?"

"UKYO!" Ranma yelled, catching his oldest friend as she crumpled.

"Ha! One dow-" Kodachi never finished her boast. Akane gave a roar that drowned out all other noise. The chains flew off of her, her ki manifesting, her muscles straining. Which was lost on Kodachi, as it happened too fast for her eyes to follow. All she knew was that the Tendo demon had broken free and then punched her in the chest with enough strength that sent her flying through the (closed) door and off the wall of the building on the far side of the street, where she slid down the wall into a trash heap. She was too unconscious at that point to see the Chinese girl evacuate her brother from the Nekohanten in a similar fashion, using more skill and less strength, thus leaving Tatewaki lying on top of her in an equally unconscious state.

Cologne was a flurry of orders and the eye of the storm all at once. "Mousse, towels and ice. Shampoo, herbs. NABIKI! Third cabinet from the door, the green box! NOW! Ranma, lie Ukyo down on a table. Let the arm dangle. Akane, we need water, cold, lots of it."

The teenagers were a maelstrom of action while the diminutive elder very carefully gathered the ribbon. Nabiki came out of the kitchen with the right box, which turned out to be a touchstone and vials of fluid. Cologne scraped the ribbon on the stone and applied several vials in turn until the poison turned purple.

Meanwhile, Mousse and Akane had Ukyo shivering in her what they hoped was sleep. She was soaked and freezing. With the bulk of the poison still in her hand, hopefully, and the hypothermia they were inducing, it would hopefully buy them time. Ranma was too busy freaking out, and had Ukyo's other hand in his. He was a moron, but he felt friendships deeply.

Shampoo was last to return. She saw the purple goo on the touchstone and nearly dropped the bag of medicines. "Aiyah," she whispered.

"That crazy Kuno has gone off the deep end this time," Cologne grumbled. She looked up and saw Ranma looking at her, pleading for answers. She sighed. "This is...an extremely lethal poison...I'm sorry. She has a few minutes, perhaps less."

Nabiki closed her eyes and sagged slightly. "It was only a matter of time," she whispered. The escalation of martial contest was doomed to seriously injure someone, eventually. But to skip injury and jump straight to...to someone dying...

Akane gasped. "No," she whispered. "Isn't there anything you can do for her?"

Ranma looked at the dying girl whose hand he held. Grief was no stranger to him. He lived a hard life. He had lived a lonely life. Ukyo was his first and best friend. Whatever fiancee crap his old man had turned that friendship into, Ranma still valued it. And he knew exactly what lines he'd cross to hold onto it. Before anyone could react he rolled up Ukyo's sleeve and sunk his fangs into her arm.

_Every damn line he could._


	6. Ukyo

Chapter 6: Ukyo

Ranma looked at the dying girl whose hand he held. Grief was no stranger to him. He lived a hard life. He had lived a lonely life. Ukyo was his first and best friend. Whatever fiancee crap his old man had turned that friendship into, Ranma still valued it. And he knew exactly what lines he'd cross to hold onto it. Before anyone could react he rolled up Ukyo's sleeve and sunk his fangs into her arm.

_Every damn line he could._

Cologne just stopped and stared. Nabiki stared. Shampoo stared.

Akane twitched. She gave Ranma time to get his teeth out of Ukyo and then punched him to the floor. "What the hell are you thinking!?"

Ranma groaned and sat up. "Come on, 'Kane. Like I could let her die?"

"That doesn't mean you can make her a thrall!" Akane yelled.

"So she'll be completely devoted to Ranma," Nabiki muttered. "Think we'll be able to tell the difference?"

Akane glared at Nabiki. "Too soon."

"Sorry. But I think she'd rather this over being dead."

Akane growled. That was true. And after a few seconds to let the idea jangle in her brain, she could admit (to herself, barely) that she'd have done the same thing. "But...this...what does this mean?"

Ranma blinked cluelessly. "Um. I hope it means Ucchan's going to live?"

Nabiki sighed. Ranma was being dense and Akane wasn't talking about her feelings well. Again. "You two have a long way to go," she grumbled. If she had to guess, and she'd known Akane her entire life so guessing was pretty darn easy, Akane was worried that Ranma having Ukyo as a thrall would be a tighter bond than anything he felt for Akane, or at least that they would end up sharing the male werecheetah. That thought would be worrisome to any girl.

"Ran...chan?" Ukyo whispered.

Cologne hopped over to Ukyo's side and examined her discreetly while Ranma spun around and looked into Ukyo's eyes...which were still closed but that really didn't matter much. "Ucchan?"

"Miss Kunonji, do not move," Cologne said sternly. "You are still very weak. Do you understand?"

Ukyo shifted her head slightly. "Y...yes," she got out.

"Good," Cologne said.

Ranma was no medical expert, but he'd seen enough battered bodies to pick up on some good signs. The slight pallor in Ukyo's cheeks was fading to a healthy blush, her breathing wasn't as shallow, and she seemed a bit more peaceful. Although that last was probably him projecting onto her. Not that he had any idea what that meant or that he was doing it.

Cologne checked Ukyo's pulse and hummed seriously. "Strong, steady. Incredible. She's not even hypothermic."

"I am rather cold," Ukyo whispered.

"Yes but we iced you down enough that you should be begging us to warm you up," Cologne said. "And cheetahs are tropical animals."

"What does that...wait. Are you saying?"

"That Ranma bit you to save your life?" Nabiki asked.

"That you are well on your way to being a werecheetah?" Cologne asked.

"That the baka might have just made you his slave?" Akane grumbled.

Cologne offered Akane a flat look.

Ranma rubbed the back of his head. "Er, yeah. I couldn't just let you die, Ucchan."

Ukyo sat up slightly, opening her eyes finally and looking into Ranma's feline face. "Thank you. Ranchan." She offered him a weak smile.

"Oi oi," Cologne groused. She pushed Ukyo back down with her staff. "What did I just say? You're recovering remarkably quickly, but this transformation isn't exactly easy on your ki. You don't want to overdo it for a few minutes yet."

Ukyo twitched slightly but lay still. "Could you tell me what Akane was talking about, then?"

"Lycanthropy," Cologne said simply.

"What, like werewolves?" Ukyo asked.

"The word certainly came from that," Cologne agreed, "but in this part of the world we have only ever seen werecats."

"Shouldn't it be felinethropy then?" Ukyo asked.

"Common sense and jargon rarely agree," Cologne said dryly. "What it's called is less important than what it is."

"What is it, then?" Ukyo had read up on werewolf legends after Ryoga ran through, so the idea that being bit by Ranma was going to give her a fur coat in the near future was something that she'd thought of. But she wanted to know what the rest of the deal was.

"I have no idea," Cologne said. "I can only tell you some of what it does."

"You're pushing the wise old sensei thing a bit far, ol' ghoul," Ranma grumbled, earning himself a thwack from said wise old ghoul's staff. "Look, the way Gina said it, lycanthropy is the thing that lets a werecat bite a guy an' turn 'em into another werecat. An' the new werecat's gotta do whatever the guy that bit him says."

"They're called thralls," Akane added. "But Ranma, Ryoga, and me all have something different about our lycanthropy."

"What's different?" Ukyo asked. Well, if she had to listen to Ranma for the rest of her life...that wasn't too bad. She'd pretty much do whatever he wanted anyway.

"We don't know," Akane said. "You're the first person either of us bit."

Cologne sighed. "Well, I suppose we need to test it. Ranma?"

"Huh?" Ranma asked.

"Give her an order," Cologne said patiently.

"What?" Ukyo asked, unnerved. Ranma asked the same question in nearly the same tone.

"You heard me," Cologne said calmly. "Nothing big, just something that can tell us, right now, if she's your thrall."

"Oh," Ranma said. He thought that over. "Ukyo, I want you to tell me what the recipe for that secret sauce of yours is."

"What!?" Ukyo yelped. "The secret Kunonji recipe!? You know I can't tell anyone that! Even you, Ranchan!"

"Doesn't sound like a thrall to me," Nabiki said wryly.

"Indeed," Cologne said, sounding mysterious and pleased at once. "You can get up now. You're clearly strong enough."

Ukyo rolled off the table and onto her feet. "Thanks. That wasn't exactly comfortable. So...other than being alive and not a slave, anything I should know about?"

Ranma looked down at Ukyo from his seven foot tall perspective. "You're turning blonde at the roots."

"I'm what?" Ukyo asked, hand going to her hair. "Um. So I guess...I really am turning into a werewhatever?"

"Cheetah," Akane supplied. "Looks like it."

"Sorry about that," Ranma said quietly.

Shampoo, who had been silent for a very long time, suddenly got up and left. She didn't say a word, she just headed to the stairs and up to her room on the second floor.

Cologne sighed at the sound of slamming doors as her heir tried to barricade hurtful truths from herself. "She's taking this well," she said.

Ukyo had a good idea what was going on in the Amazon's head. She felt a little thrill at being able to share this new adventure with Ranma. She turned to Nabiki. "What are the odds that she'll ask Ranma to bite her? I'd like to place a few bets."

Nabiki started considering how to handle that when Akane cut her off. "Don't even think it, Nabiki. Ukyo wasn't here for the first part."

"What first part?" Ukyo asked.

"If Ranma bites her, the Amazons will banish her," Akane said.

"Not exactly, but sadly close enough," Cologne corrected.

Ukyo stared for a moment. "Damn. No wonder she looks like she could give Ryoga depression lessons. So what's with the sorta-banishment?"

"The Amazon laws say that we aren't human," Ranma said calmly.

"Eh?" Ukyo asked. "I still _look_ human."

"We don't," Akane pointed out, gesturing to her hybrid form. "And in a few days, this is going to feel more like the 'real you' than the body you're in now does."

Ukyo frowned and looked over her friend/rival. Akane towered over everyone except Ranma. Her figure, and Ukyo knew Akane's figure had always been good under those clothes, was much improved by the toned, lithe muscles. Although she didn't think there was any reason a cat should have breasts _that_ big. Still, the face was recognizable. "Well no, but you're still...um...uh..."

"We had a week to get over that hurdle," Akane said with some amusement. She shifted to her human form and took the now-taller Ukyo's arm. "Come on, sit down. Cologne, would it be too much to ask for an order? I'll pay, of course."

Cologne smiled slightly. "I'll get the range going. You too, Mr. Part Time."

"Quack," Mousse grumbled.

"Hey, where's Konatsu?" Ranma asked suddenly. "I mean, you'll hafta tell her about all this later, right? Er, him?"

"I had customers at Ucchan's when he told me you were coming here," Ukyo said. "I finished up their orders and had him stick around to see to them and clean up."

"You trust him to do all that?" Ranma asked, remembering the last catastrophe.

"Yeah," Ukyo said brightly. "He can handle pretty much everything but cooking and pricing, now. Anyway, he'll probably be along shortly."

"What kind of ramen do you want, anyway?" Cologne shouted from the back.

"Tuna!" Ranma and Akane shouted at once.

"Eh?" Ukyo wondered. Actually, that did sound...unusually good.

* * *

Ukyo twitched. "How fast?"

Ranma grinned. "Never going to be late for school again."

"Yeah right," Akane laughed. "You'll just spar with your dad longer each morning."

Ranma thought that over. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"You can't be serious," Ukyo said.

"You'll see," Akane promised with a giggle.

"There are a few downsides, though," Ranma warned. "You're going to have to get a new outfit."

"What?" Ukyo asked.

Ranma plucked at his baggy shirt. "Your werecheetah form is probably going to be two feet taller, maybe more. You don't have all the strength training me or Akane has, so you might be a bit thinner-"

"Britanny told us that most werecheetahs looked pretty thin," Akane explained, interpreting Ukyo's look as an insult to her figure. "We're built for speed, not strength. It's just all the werecheetahs still alive have done so much muscle training that you would never know it."

"Wait, back up. What do you mean, still alive?" Ukyo asked. This sounded Bad.

"They were all killed off a generation ago," Ranma said grimly. "There's only one left, she was a baby at the time. The guy who did it tried to kill her, too."

Cologne was sitting a table away, listening discretely. Not that she was eavesdropping, exactly, they all knew she was listening, but Ukyo's questions were more important than her own, so she kept her distance. She frowned at this new information. Ranma had a talent for getting enemies. She shouldn't be surprised that his new species came with yet more. "Do you know who it was?"

"Yes and no," Nabiki said quietly. She'd been involved in a couple of talks with Britanny as the last of the werecheetahs taught her new cousins. She'd also been the one to coax the whole painful story out of the girl. Not exactly her proudest contribution to their education, but no one could deny the necessity of the knowledge. They had _enemies_ now. "The short version is that a werewolf went power-hungry after being manipulated by a wererat and killed half his own clan and all the werecheetahs. The werewolf responsible has been killed, and his daughter has made peace with Britanny."

"She's the last werecheetah, right?" Ukyo asked.

"Right," Ranma confirmed. "Well, until us anyway."

"Er, yeah. That's going to take some getting used to."

"Tell me about it," Akane grumbled.

Cologne hummed to herself and digested that story. "What about the were_rat_ you mentioned?"

"Dr. Diggers knows more," Nabiki grumbled, "but he wouldn't tell us anything about him. His name is Gothwrain, he's a leader in the wererat clan, and he, or the entire clan, wants to kill all werecheetahs."

"I'd rather be alive," Ukyo said dryly.

"Not exaggerating, Ukyo," Nabiki reminded her.

"Yeah," Ukyo sighed. "I get it. But it's not like we're helpless."

"Or that we're going to let our lives be ruled by fear," Akane agreed.

Ranma nodded. "So are you going to come out of hiding now that we're done talking about enemies?"

"He got here later than I expected," Ukyo said. Granted she didn't know for herself that he was here, but she trusted Ranma.

True to form, Konatsu appeared in his kimono only a few feet away. "I apologize, Ukyo-sama. One of the customers chose to become violent after being informed that we were to close early. Removing him in an appropriate fashion delayed me considerably."

Ukyo looked Konatsu over and shrugged. "You seem fine, so no problem."

"Now, I think it's time we explained the dangers of being a werecheetah," Ranma said. "Good news first. You're gonna heal real fast, even faster than I useta. Almost anything that leaves your body whole, you'll survive and heal."

"Anything?" Ukyo asked dubiously.

"Gina said that Britanny has survived wounds humans would find instantly fatal on many occasions," Akane added. "We haven't exactly tested it. Pain still hurts."

"True," Ranma agreed with a slight smile. "Anyway. Three exceptions to that rule."

"Silver," Cologne said.

"_That_ is probably the worst of the three," Ranma agreed. "The other two are magic and other weres. Those two aren't any more dangerous to us than to most people, they just aren't less dangerous either. Silver, that's a problem. Touch it, you get burned. Literally. And if it gets in you, that's really bad. Doesn't even take that much."

"So a silver sword would be more dangerous than a magic sword?" Ukyo asked dubiously.

"Depends on how the sword's magic, but yeah," Ranma said seriously.

Ukyo shivered. "That's not exactly comforting."

"Is that all the dangers Ukyo-sama now faces?" Konatsu asked.

"Pretty much," Ranma said.

"I see. Thank you for the information. Ukyo-sama, would you please bite me?"

Silence.

"You want me to what?" Ukyo shrieked.

"I want you to turn me into a werecheetah, Ukyo-sama," Konatsu clarified. "I apologize for my imprecision."

"I knew what you meant!" Ukyo yelped. "**Why** are you asking?"

"Wouldn't I be of more use to Ukyo-sama if I were stronger, faster?" Konatsu asked.

"Well..."

"And if enemies do come for you, wouldn't I protect you better?"

"But..."

"And...and I want to follow Ukyo-sama!"

Ukyo sighed and hung her head. She knew that was going to be part of it. But she was in love with Ranchan, not Konatsu. She couldn't just bite him and string him along, ruin his chance with a nice human girl someday.

"Ukyo can't bite ya anyway, Konatsu," Ranma interrupted. "She can't do it in human form and we don't know how long it'll take for her ta change. An' we don't know if this is really safe." He sighed. "Sorry, Ucchan."

Ukyo waved that off. "Don't go down that route again, Ranchan. Whatever happens, it's better than dying from some crazy Kuno's poison." She smiled. "Besides, Konatsu isn't the only one that likes being closer to someone."

Cologne hopped over. "More truth in that than you know, Miss Kunonji. You realize that, from a certain perspective, you are now a family."

"What?" Akane asked flatly.

Cologne nodded. "I can't speak directly for the other groups in this part of the world, but in certain circles it is well known that werecats organized in clans. They will not see you as Saotome clan, Tendo clan, Kunonji clan, whatever your names are. They will see a single werecheetah clan, and deal with you as such."

"Is that as ominous as it sounds?" Nabiki asked.

"Probably not," Cologne allowed. "You're a small clan, far from the homes of such villages, and Ranma has enough of a personal reputation that dealing with you is more likely to involve signing treaties than fighting warriors."

"I have a reputation?" Ranma asked.

"One does not put out the flame of Saffron without gaining a reputation, Ranma," Cologne observed. "Nor best the Musk Prince. Yes, you have quite the reputation as being a generally unpleasant person to piss off."

Ranma grinned and sat up a bit straighter. "Yeah I guess I am that ow!"

Akane bonked Ranma onn the head and glared at Cologne. "You had to stroke his ego, didn't you?"

Cologne smiled wryly. "Annoying as Ranma's arrogance is, his reputation is both real and well-earned. With the proper tactics, it can be used in your favor when word of your clan does inevitably reach those groups."

"Does that include the Amazons?" Nabiki asked.

Cologne nodded. "I will advise an alliance when I return home, yes."

"And who will you want to negotiate with?"

"For myself, whomever Ranma names as his advocate," Cologne said. "For the others? The word of a human will not be seen as binding the werecats, I'm afraid."

Nabiki turned to Akane. "As soon as Dr. Diggers confirms Ukyo isn't a thrall, you're biting me."

Akane's jaw dropped. "What!?"

"Hey, I can't protect you if the people you're dealing with won't listen to me," Nabiki said. "If I need a fur coat to be taken seriously, so be it."

Ranma shook his head. "Aw man, what's going on here? First Konatsu, now Nabiki? And probably Shampoo if it wasn't for that law. Does everyone have a thing for cats I didn't know about?"

"It's connections, Ranma," Cologne said seriously. "More than anything else, people are defined by who they are close to. You two play a prominent role in the lives of many in this neighborhood."

Ranma sighed heavily and shook his head. "What do we do about this?" he wondered. "What do I do?"

"You use those connections," Cologne said. "You gather allies. And you face the future."

Ranma nodded and sighed. "Yeah, I guess."

"I've never heard you so serious, Ranma," Akane said.

"I've never faced a problem I couldn't fight with my fists," Ranma said. "This isn't some magic noodles or dogi or even a secret technique. We're really, seriously figuring out the rest of our lives right here. It's...big."

Everyone thought that over for a moment, then Nabiki broke the silence. "Never thought I'd tell you this, Saotome, but you're thinking too much," she said.

Ranma stared at the older girl. "What?"

"Major life decisions aren't a bad thing, but you're missing two things. First, right now you want to keep your options open, not commit to a path outright."

"We're not the ones signing up for a bite, Nabiki," Akane answered.

Nabiki smiled wryly. "I need to be able to negotiate with foreign clans on behalf of the Werecheetah Clan at a moment's notice, which means at a moment's notice I need to be a werecheetah myself and be comfortable enough in that body that it doesn't throw me off my game."

"You could walk away," Ranma pointed out.

"No, I can't," Nabiki said. "I don't follow your Code, Ranma, but that doesn't mean I don't agree with parts of it. When it's important, when people I care about need me, Nabiki Tendo does not run away."

Ranma leaned back. "Never heard you talk like that, Nabs."

"Never needed to, Ranma."

"Fair enough, but what's the second point?" Ranma asked.

"School tomorrow."

The highschoolers blinked at eachother.

Ukyo's hands went to her long, newly blonde hair and screamed. "What are we going to do!?"

Nabiki looked to Cologne. "Got any sedatives?" she asked.

Cologne hopped into the kitchen and started a pot of tea.

It took a while to calm Ukyo down, but they managed to get half a glass of tea into her, which noticably helped. Nabiki frowned at the glazed look on Ukyo's eyes and turned to Cologne. "Exactly what is in this tea?" she asked warily.

"Catnip," Cologne answered. "Everything else would be too strong for that mild panic attack."

"I think you forgot to account for the fact that she is a cat," Nabiki said wryly.

"Meow," Ukyo sang, then giggled.

Cologne frowned. "It should be far too dilute to have a strong effect. Anything bigger than a housecat should barely feel it."

"Homeopathy and magic mix way too easily," Nabiki grumbled.

"I should make catnip okonomiyaki," Ukyo sighed, reaching for her tea.

Nabiki pulled it away. "No more tea for you. Or you two, Akane, Ranma."

"Mou," Ukyo pouted.

"Um, anyway," Akane said, looking a bit weirded out by Ukyo, "plan?"

"Plan A is shot straight to hell by now," Nabiki grumbled. "And with it, a chunk of my own credibility."

"The rumor that Akane had been kidnapped by a hairstylist prince?" Cologne asked. "I can only assume that plan was put together in haste. It would never have lasted long."

"We were hoping it would last long enough for the 'weird things happen around Ranma' feelings to kick in and cover for revealing more of what happened," Nabiki explained.

Cologne thought that over. "That wouldn't have worked with us, but I can see how that could deflect attention from most of your peers. But not any longer."

"No," Akane agreed. "Thanks to pig brain blabbing to the whole school, tomorrow everyone is going to know exactly what we are."

"Not exactly, sis," Nabiki corrected. "I've done some searching. There's nothing out there about werecheetahs other than some unanswered questions posted since Ryoga blew our cover. Internet, library, common mythologies, it's a complete ghost. So people will only have questions, mostly patched together from what they've read about werewolves. Oh, you two should avoid the Twilight freaks for at least a month."

"I don't want to know," Ranma said to that. Akane agreed.

"You really don't," Nabiki confirmed. "But no matter what, there are going to be questions. And since Ryoga already revealed the whole shapeshifting thing..." Nabiki sighed. "From a tactical information control standpoint, this is blown. Unless we want to make up a whole new set of lies, whatever information we give out is our choice."

"No lies," Ranma said. "With Ryoga out there, any story we tell is going to blow up anyway. Besides, the fiancees are in on it now, anyway."

"True," Nabiki agreed. "So all you need to do is decide what questions you want to answer. I'll work up an answer sheet, you'll sign it so they know it's legit, and we can get the school off your back for a while at least."

"We could just go to school like this," Ranma suggested.

Nabiki looked over the seven foot tall werecheetah. "You'd never fit in your desk like that," she pointed out.

"Oh, right," Ranma said.

Nabiki noted the disappointment in Ranma's voice and reminded herself that this transformation was altering his self-image a lot more than his curse ever did. "But I take it you wouldn't mind letting everyone know about that form," she confirmed.

"Why would we?" Akane asked.

Ukyo looked at the werecheetahs...the other werecheetahs, anyway. "What? Uh, guys, you barely look human like that. You're going to freak people out walking around like that."

"They'll get used to it," Ranma said calmly.

Ukyo worked her mouth silently. Ranma she could see being so calm about introducing massive weirdness into Nerima, but it looked like Akane agreed with him. "Am I going to start thinking that way?" she whimpered.

Konatsu frowned at Ukyo and considered giving her a hug, but his shyness held him back.

Akane smiled at Ukyo. "Probably," she said. "We got used to this a lot faster than we should have."

Ukyo sighed. "Well, I guess that's better than being uncomfortable the rest of my life."

"Yeah," Ranma agreed.

"Which doesn't explain how I've gotten used to seeing you like that," Nabiki grumbled. "Anyway. Silver."

"No way," Ranma said. "You saw what happened when they learned about the nekoken."

"He's got a point," Akane agreed.

"But the werewolf legends talk about silver," Ukyo argued. "It's not exactly the most reliable source..."

"...but people around here have done dumber things on less," Akane finished. "Okay. So we need to say something about silver."

"Most everyone that actually wants to challenge you isn't willing to kill," Nabiki mused, looking Ranma over. "If we emphasize, even exaggerate the lethality of silver, the only ones you'll have to worry about are nutjobs like Gosunkugi."

"Hello?" Ranma asked, pointing out the door at the Kunos. "Kuno, Ryoga, Mousse? They've all tried to kill me. And we all know Happosai can't be trusted with that kind of information."

"Mousse already knows, Ranma," Cologne interrupted. "And the Kuno boy's sword, do you recognize it?"

Ranma frowned and looked out at the katana sticking up awkwardly from the trash heap like a beacon of stupidity. "Isn't that the wish granting sword?" he asked. "Why is he still carrying that around?"

"It hardly matters," Cologne said darkly. "But it is good that you recognized the magic sword when you saw it."

Ranma's eyes widened. "But...but the wishes are all gone," he said.

"Regardless, the blade is an artifact of magic. And that fool has often meddled in powers beyond his understanding."

"Breathing is beyond Kuno's understanding," Akane pointed out.

"True," Cologne allowed. "But more importantly, he likely has a sizable supply of magic blades with minor enchantments. Heirlooms, relics, prizes of battle from his ancestors. He does not need silver to be a threat."

"And Ryoga's a werepig," Akane growled. "He doesn't need anything but his bare hands."

Ranma sighed. "so much for invulnerability."

Cologne chuckled. "No such thing, I'm afraid. Oh, and I can't imagine Happy not knowing at least enough to find out about the silver weakness. You will need to be cautious around him."

"I always am," Ranma said grimly. "Anything else?"

Nabiki thought that over. "A few things," she said. "We need an answering strategy. But I think we can make it a bit easier on you with a little prep work."

* * *

Ranma opened his eyes slowly and grumbled. It was a rare morning that he got a chance to wake up slowly, without his father attacking him, and he wanted to make the most of it. He nuzzled back down into his pillow and twitched his tail contentedly. Then he felt something on his wrist.

Genma was upset that his dishonorable son was using his large and heavy cat form to keep him from using the familiar combination of force and leverage to start their morning spar and wasn't about to let him slack off any more. "Wake up!" he bellowed, grabbing his son's forepaw and spinning him laterally out the (open) window.

The pseudodefenestrated lycanthropic feline adolescent landed on his paws and roared a challenge up at his father.

Genma grinned and launched his attack. This wasn't their usual morning banter. This could be interesting.

Akane's eyes opened with tired determination and she pushed herself up into a sitting position. She glanced out the window and twitched a whisker at the sight. Genma trying to fight a cat – Ranma – that was moving so fast Genma looked like he was mired in molasses. She smiled slightly and rested against the windowsill. Everything that was wrong with Ranma was probably Genma's fault, so she enjoyed watching these morning beatdowns. Also it was one of the few times she could watch Ranma without him knowing. Mmm. What was the word Gina had used? Oh yes. Ranma was quite the hunk.

Ranma's grin changed slightly. Not the confident smirk he always wore when playing punish the panda, now he had an audience. He knew better than to let Akane know he knew she liked to watch his fights, but he did so love giving her something to watch. He dug his paws into the dirt and chased down his father. Genma tried to react but he was just too slow. Ranma lowered himself and dove between his father's legs, shifted to hybrid, and kicked upwards into the small of Genma's back. His father ate dirt.

Ranma pushed off the ground, flipped head over heels, and landed on his feet smoothly, lording over the fallen father. "What's the matter, pops? Getting _slow_ in your old age?"

Genma spat out some dirt and looked back at his son, carrying a retort that died on his lips. Ranma had his arms crossed, smirking, his body utterly relaxed. He was as nonchalant as he was when he sparred with Akane...before he took over Akane's training. Genma twitched as he realized that his son was telling him that he warranted less caution than his fiancee. And Ranma's cold smirk made it obvious he knew the message he was sending. Genma's eyes hardened.

Ranma didn't have time to drop into a ready stance. Genma's counterattack was not the outrage fueled flailing that Ranma had expected. Genma was attacking with all the dispassionate precision of a trained martial artist who had control over his rage. This was the Genma Saotome that had conned and charmed his way across Japan and China, that had seduced and betrothed Nadoka, that had invented the Umisenken. Too bad he was still slow.

Ranma vanished from Genma's sight. Genma knew Ranma would flank him and attack before he could adjust to the boy's new angle of attack, so he responded blindly with a sweeping lowkick. It was a move from the Tendo school, which favored a strong ground game, and its counter in the Saotome school, which favored aerial fighting... Ranma jumped well above the kick, setting up for a strike on the way down. Genma calmly grabbed Ranma's foot and hurled him into the koi pond. It didn't matter how fast the werecheetah was, he still fell the same.

Ranma hauled herself out of the pond, growling. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to dry fur, pops?"

Genma raised an eyebrow and took in his son-turned-daughter's new form. A full foot shorter, the shortest hybrid he'd seen and still tall enough to look him in the forehead. She was slimmer, too, not emasculated by any means but her predisposition for speed over power was obvious. Her fur was the same pattern of yellow, white, and brown that her male form had, but crimson highlights invaded every follicle. The water dripping from her in the dawn sun caught those highlights and made it look like she was dripping liquid fire.

She was also mad.

Akane smiled slightly, pushing aside some irritation. Ranma's girlform wasn't hard on the eyes, but she wasn't as interesting to watch as his true body. But the beatdown she was handing Genma was quite amusing. The actual increase in her speed was relatively minor, but Genma could barely keep up with male Ranma. The slightly speedier female form was simply too much. Within fifteen seconds Genma was borderline unconscious, a panda, and sailing above the compound wall into the street.

"Ranma!" Kasumi called. "You should get cleaned up or you'll be late for breakfast!"

Ranma ran inside and headed to the bath. "Thanks, Kasumi!"

Akane considered the merits of 'accidentally' walking in on Ranma after he had time to slip into the furo but decided against it. Best not to get off on the wrong foot today of all days. That in mind, she picked up her own gi. She'd get in a bit of training before her own bath.


	7. Furinkan

Chapter 7: Furinkan

An hour later Akane, Ranma, and Nabiki were well on their way to school. Akane was tugging at her sleeve, a frown on her face.

"Problem?" Nabiki asked, swinging her bag idly. Furinkan was just a block away; this was a bad time for Akane to be getting cold feet.

Akane glanced up from her uniform. "No...yes...I don't know. I think my uniform shrunk."

"Kasumi's better than that," Ranma said.

"And it's not tight, exactly, just...uncomfortable."

"It'll never fit your hybrid form," Ranma said. He plucked at his own loose shirt. "I didn't feel comfortable until Kasumi adjusted my shirts for me."

"Well that's fine for you, but some of us actually follow the dress code," Akane grumbled.

"I followed the code at my old schools," Ranma protested. "My girl form would never fit the guy's uniform here. Face it, Akane, we got reasons to dress different."

Akane grumbled a bit.

Air wooshed and suddenly a fourth person was walking with them. "Hi, Ranchan."

Nabiki whistled. "How'd you pull that off?"

"I wasn't running that fast," Ukyo complained.

"Yes you were, but I meant the outfit."

Ukyo looked over herself. "It's the same outfit I always wear." Indeed, the blue chef's outfit with the masculine cut, the bandolier of spatulas, and the heavy battle spatula on her back were the only defining features of her outfit. She had her hair back in a hard, tight ponytail that befit a young man with long hair. Even her tail was groomed to avoid fluffing up and looking poofy. Oh, and she was over six feet tall, furred, with a tail. But that wasn't so important.

"Konatsu?" Ranma asked.

"I swear, that boy could give Kasumi a run for her money in feminine skills," Ukyo muttered.

"Um," Akane asked, "how did you keep your, um, that is, you still look like a boy?"

Ukyo quashed a grin at the prudish Tendo's embarrassment. "Turns out you were right about the muscle training. I'm a lot slimmer than either of you. And I have a lot of experience masking my figure. It's all in the walk. See?" She took a few steps, exaggerating her strut. It looked ridiculous. Then she changed again, and she looked like a girl wearing men's clothes. Another change and the illusion was nearly flawless again.

"Wow," Akane said. Nabiki and Ranma just nodded; both had known that part of Ukyo's boy act for a while. They had learned to read body language at a young age, for their own reasons.

"Anyway, Ukyo," Nabiki cautioned, "you should probably change to human if you don't want to be mobbed."

Ukyo pouted but let her form collapse in on itself. She adjusted her outfit for a moment and looked just like the same old Ukyo, just with blonde spotted hair.

Akane wowed at the sight. "How did you pull that off?" she asked.

Ukyo grinned. "Same experience. I'll give you some tips after school."

"Speaking of which," Nabiki said, attracting everyone's attention to where they were walking. They turned the corner and there before them was Furinkan High School. And their welcoming party.

"At last the foul demon has come to meet his just punishment!" Kuno stood at the school gates, bokken in hands and raised skywards in a high guard. Behind him was a crowd of what looked to be about half the school.

Ranma, Akane, Nabiki, and Ukyo all sighed in unison. Kuno ignored them. "I will give you a moment to repent!"

Ranma rolled his eyes and took a swaggering step forward. "No sword today, Kuno?"

"I need no blade to end you," Kuno boasted. "This noble instrument with which I teach my lessers is more than adequate to destroy you and banish your curses from Akane Tendo and the pigtailed girl."

Ranma turned his back to Kuno and looked to Akane. "Do you want him?" he asked casually.

Akane glared at Ranma. "How can you ask that?" she asked, gagging at the thought.

"I mean to fight!" Ranma snapped.

Akane blinked, anger and disgust both collapsing in on themselves. "Oh. No, you can have your fun."

"You see! The fierce Akane cannot be so easily compelled to harm my magnificent self!"

Akane rushed Kuno in the blink of an eye and her fist embedded itself into his stomach. She held that pose for long enough for his eyes to focus on her outraged expression and then she pulled back and spun away. Her fist pulled out of his gut as she pivoted, but she brought up her opposite foot and kicked the side of his head with punishing force. Rather than kicking up as she usually did, she caught him on the downswing of her kick and knocked him to the ground hard enough to bury his face down several centimeters. She finished her spin looking down and Kuno, hands on her hips. "Hmph," she snorted and spun on one heel to walk back to Ranma. She was pleased by his stunned expression. "You may get rid of him now," she said with the grandeur she knew Nabiki pulled off better than she ever did.

"I...fight...on..." Kuno groaned.

Ranma obliged by kicking Kuno over the school.

Nabiki watched the delusional projectile. "Roof of the nurse's office?" she asked.

"I was feeling sorry for him," Ranma said.

"You know they haven't gotten around to putting the mattress on the roof yet," Hiroshi said conversationally, walking over to Ranma.

Ranma shrugged. "Oops."

Hiroshi's approach triggered a reaction in the crowd which surged forwards. A dozen lungs filled to yell out three times as many questions. In moments the air was an unintelligible clamoring. Akane ducked into a defensive stance and pushed away people trying to stroke her hair to see if it was real while trying to get some headway. "Get off me you perverts!" she yelled.

Ranma was only having slightly better luck. He was being mobbed mostly by girls who knew he wouldn't use force against them. Instead of pushing his way through, he was trying to jump out. But every time he landed he was mobbed again.

Ukyo was the least experienced at being a freakshow and had her battle spatula out, using its flat sides to leverage open a path to safety. Her obvious intolerance for the attention quickly made her an unpopular target, and she was the first to make it into the safety of the school.

Nabiki held back with her own mob of attention. Most of these were students with yen trying to buy answers, but a few were her lackeys looking for instructions. She turned to the latter and opened up her bag. "These are info packets. Page through them quick," she said, handing out stacks of small pamphlets. "Then get into that crowd and sell them off."

One girl glanced at the price stamp in the corner. "Is this a misprint?"

"No," Nabiki said. "I need these answers out there."

"But this isn't even half the usual rate."

"It'll come out of my cut, don't worry," Nabiki said. She was barely operating above cost; with the blow to her credibility last week this mess was seriously damaging her local income. "Just this once. We'll be back to business as usual tomorrow. Anyone wants to buy info not in there, they see me at lunch. Got it?"

"Right," the girls said. They dispersed into the crowd and got busy hawking their wares.

Nabiki glanced up at the clock. Ten minutes until class. They were right on schedule. The crowd should thin to a third of its current size in the next twenty seconds, the remainder would be more or less willing to listen to quick answers. Two minutes after that the warning bell would sound and everyone else would retreat, except for the trio's classmates. The venue would change to the classroom, they'd miss the first two or so periods in intense questioning, the teachers wouldn't intervene out of their own curiosity. Not that they'd admit it; ignoring the weirdness as much as possible was the only way most of them got the courage to come in every day.

Nabiki nodded. The plan was going to work.

She had forgotten that a lot of plans had worked lately. Nerima doesn't look kindly on that. In this case, Nerima manifested in the form of Gosunkugi.

Gosunkugi was not wearing his uniform. Nor was he wearing his ritual garb, exactly. He kept the candles strapped to his head but below that was dressed in a tunic wrap, straight pants, and soft leather shoes all a matte black, with a cape of black and red. A set of plastic fangs completed the costume, making him look like Dracula's inbred nephew more than anything else. He carried in his hands a small mallet and a polished nail. He cackled and pointed the nail at Ranma. "And now you will fall before me, Saotome!"

Ranma hung his head and sighed. "What are you on about this time, Gosunkugi?"

Akane frowned and looked over. Why was Gosunkugi yelling at Ranma? He wasn't being a jerk. Yet.

"This time I know your _real_ weakness!" Gosunkugi cackled. He turned the nail so Ranma could get a good look at it. "Silver!"

Ranma tensed slightly, so slightly only someone who had seen him fight a lot could tell. Akane's gasp and Ukyo's suddenly hard expression clued everyone else in that Gosunkugi actually had something.

Gosunkugi grinned wildly. "And now you will face my true power!" In a flash he had the nail poised, the mallet ready...and hammered the nail through a Ranma doll into a tree. "You fool Saotome!" Wham. "You fool Saotome!" Wham. "You fool Saotome!" Wham.

Ranma stared. Akane stared. Ukyo stared. Everyone stared. Nothing else particularly remarkable happened.

Gosunkugi blinked. "You didn't burst into flame. You should have burst into flame. Why didn't you burst into flame? Um. Can, uh, can we pretend this never happened? At least until I figure out what I did wrong?"

Nabiki shook her head, walked over, and scraped a yen coin against the nail. She glanced from nail to coin and looked at Ranma. "It's not even real silver."

Gosunkugi felt what little blood he had drain from his face. "Uh. Oh."

Ranma cracked his knuckles. "Gosunkugi..." he growled.

**BONG**

Nabiki glanced back up. "That's the bell!" she called. "Better get to your classes if you don't want to be late!"

Gosunkugi was the first one inside, a trail of dust behind him.

"Feh," Ranma snorted.

Hiroshi burst out laughing. "Well, I bet you weren't expecting that to be the first challenge you got, eh Ranma?"

"So," Daisuke asked, glancing over at Akane and sidling up to Ranma, "what does Akane look like when she gets furry? Rowr?"

Ranma glared at Daisuke. "_What?" _he snapped.

Daisuke blanched and took a step back. "Hey, just asking, no harm in that right?" he laughed nervously. Ranma cracked his knuckles and turned towards the school. Daisuke trembled slightly and let out a breath. Stay of execution, granted.

Sayuri leaned in to Akane. "So, what does Ranma look like when he gets furry?"

"Saruri," Yuka chided. Akane's blush was all the answer she needed to that question, but if they were going to get anything from Akane other than how she couldn't love a pervert like Ranma, they had to get her on a different topic fast. "So was that nail really so scary?" she asked.

"If it had been silver, yeah," Akane said, recovering. "Imagine if that nail had been glowing white, so hot that you'd barely have to touch it to be seriously burned. That's what all silver is to us, now."

"Yikes," Yuka said. Sayuri whimpered sympathetically. "Anything else you need to look out for?"

"Well, they say magic has a tendency to react to us in the worst possible ways," Akane mused, "but I'm not sure we'd notice the difference." She smiled. "But really, I'm tired about talking about what happened to us. We missed a bunch of classes last week; what did you study?"

The girls thought that over as they headed into the school.

* * *

A few hours later it was time for Ranma's second favorite part of school: gym class. Of course, first he had to deal with the locker-room.

"Yes, I still have my curse," he growled, "and if you get anywhere near me with that water I'm going to make you wish _you_ were the girl."

Hiroshi gauged Ranma's expression for a moment with all the intensity of a deer in the headlights. "Fair enough," he said. He threw the cup of water over his shoulder, away from Ranma.

"HEY!" Daisuke yelped.

Ranma rolled his eyes and got back to changing. It had been like that all day. He hadn't been besieged by so many questions since that bout with Kodachi...was it really less than a year ago? It felt like a lifetime since he had shown up on the Tendo's doorstep and met the world's least cute tomboy. He shook his head out of nostalgia and returned his attention to putting on his shorts. He'd learned from those mistakes. Denying his weirdness just made people ask about it more, so he'd be open about it. He was a werecheetah, and he'd be proud of it.

Minutes later, Ranma, Akane, and Ukyo were just staring at their teacher as he explained that they were going to be running laps around the track.

The three werecheetahs looked at eachother and grinned. "Race ya," Ranma offered.

"You're on," Akane answered.

"I'm in," Ukyo laughed.

The three made a leisurely walk to the track and lined up behind the rest of their classmates. Daisuke looked to Hiroshi, behind them to the three werecats, and back to Hiroshi. "Dive for cover?"

"Good idea," the other boy agreed.

"Go!" the teacher yelled.

Most of the class went off at a comfortable jog. Hiroshi, Daisuke, and a few others lunged sideways to get out of the martial artists' way. Ranma, Akane, and Ukyo just stood where they were, looking rather unconcerned with the whole affair.

"I said go," the teacher huffed.

"How many laps are we making?" Ranma asked.

"As many as you can," the teacher snapped. "Look just because you brats dyed your hair doesn't mean you can goof off. Get going!"

"Brats?" Akane snarled.

"Dyed?" Ukyo gasped.

Ranma cracked his knuckles. "What's the record anyway?"

"You set it a few months ago," the teacher grumbled. "Twenty laps."

Ranma saw that the majority of the class was a quarter of the way through their first lap, with the group that expected to get trampled only a few dozen meters away. "Feels like a good time to set some new records," he said, stretching his legs out.

"Not at this pace," the teacher snapped. "I want you at the head of the pack by the fifth lap or you're in for it, Saotome."

Ranma grinned. "Done." He took off down the track.

"No fair!" Ukyo yelled, running after him.

"JERK!" Akane howled in hot pursuit.

The teacher twitched slightly. He'd seen martial artists run. They were impressive, but they didn't turn into a blur unless you were looking at them closely. Ranma was a blur on the other side of the track. A golden blur. It was either time to hit the sake or sober up.

Ranma chuckled. He wasn't even breaking a sweat and he knew he was going several times faster than he could have a week ago. He could feel his hybrid legs move, powerful muscles pushing his body forward so hard that by the time his other foot came down he was meters away from his last footprint. His heart hammered in his chest, his lungs filled and emptied in a steady but rapid pattern. His tail swayed in the air behind him, balancing his powerful strides and hurling his weight to maneuver without slowing. And damn, could he _dance_ at this speed. He didn't pass his classmates, he slipped around them. Waiting for them to get out of the way seemed ridiculous at this pace, and swinging out around them was so far out of the way. Why bother, when he knew that all he had to do was push his weight like _so_ and he'd slip around Sayuri by barely a centimeter and be on his way without slowing down at all?

And he could go _even faster._ But that wasn't a good idea. He could feel the magic in his body. He knew what it felt like to sprint, to run, to jog. His body was sprinting, but his reserves felt the drain of a heavy jog. The enchantments that made him what he was were keeping his stamina up, his temperature down. He could go faster easily, but the magic couldn't keep up. He'd tire, slow, stop, just like a real cheetah. He had his limits.

His heart soared. Pushing those limits would be a challenge worthy of a Saotome.

Ranma wasn't alone in his exultation. Akane was right on his heels, laughing in the wind. Ranma glanced behind him to see her whip around Sayuri twice before racing on. "You need to do better than that to catch me, tomboy!" he teased.

"Ooo, just you wait, tomcat!" Akane growled.

"Don't forget about me!" Ukyo yelled. She ran past both werecheetahs with the same ease they ran around the other students.

Ranma frowned. "Ukyo! Don't wear yourself out too much!"

Ukyo was running too hard to yell back. She knew that was a bad thing. Ultimately there were always diminishing returns as the body was pushed closer to its limit, and Ukyo was feeling the strain of her little stunt eating away at her stamina. Like the tortoise and the hare, she'd have to take a break and her hard won lead would be lost, and then some.

The teacher jumped as the fastest blur ran off the track and resolved into some kind of massive cat woman in girl's gym shorts and top. She didn't quite collapse, but she was panting hard. "Wh wh wha? Who? What?"

"Relax, teach," a cat man said. The teacher recognized Saotome's pigtail. "It's just Ukyo. C'mon, breathe Ucchan. Let's get you some water."

"How fast were you running?" the teacher asked warily.

"I dunno," Ranma said. "I think I made five laps. Ukyo made six or seven."

The teacher looked at his stopwatch and made some calculations. He twitched. "That's not possible."

Ranma chuckled. "Haven't heard anyone say that in a long time."

* * *

Ukyo chugged the rest of her bottle and sighed. "Dammit. I didn't know it was going to be that hard."

Ranma nodded and handed Ukyo a fresh bottle. "Don't feel too bad. Akane and me did the same thing last week. We're born sprinters. You have to get a feel for how fast you can go before you wipe yourself out like this."

Ukyo took another gulp and looked at the empty bottle. "I don't think I've been this thirsty in my life."

Ranma chuckled. "How did Brit put it? High performance body. You can work it hard but you'll pay for every demand."

"Good to know," Ukyo grumbled. "Any other catches you forgot to mention?"

"Probably," Ranma said. "But I can't think of any."

Ukyo didn't have a chance to retort before a pineapple landed between them. "Oh crap," she said instead.

Ranma grabbed the fruit and hurled it away. It exploded safely above the track. He spun in a quick circle. "Where are you?" he growled.

"Hey, you keiki no have da right haircuts! Very very bad!" The one (and hopefully only) Principal Kuno jumped off the roof of the school with a coconut-styled parachute.

Ranma held his head to try and force the migraine from taking root. "Great, now I've fought the whole set," he grumbled.

Kuno held up a pair of shears and cut his way free of the parachute. "You bad keiki, growing hair all over body very very against da school rules!"

Ukyo got up on her feet but Ranma pushed her back down. "No. You rest." He looked to the deranged barber. "It's just you and me."

"Cut cuto," Kuno cackled, waving his shears menacingly. "You not be takin me with a full head o' hair!"

Ranma tapped into the Soul of Ice and regarded the delusional instructor calmly. "Then I'll take you bald," he sneered.

"Never!" Kuno yelled as he lunged forward.

Ranma was behind the principal. "What are you lunging at?"

Kuno spun around, his shears making a wide cut to shave Ranma's chest.

But Ranma was behind him again. "Your aim sucks," he complained.

This little dance continued for some time until Ranma tired of the game. He jumped up in front of the principal and struck the sky. Winds roared and the principal was sucked up by a sudden vacuum.

Ukyo's eyes widened. Ranma had only rarely resorted to the complicated Heavenly Dragon Ascension. And this one was different, compact in a way she had never seen before. "What?"

Ranma watched his handiwork calmly for a moment and took one step to the left before the principal landed where he had been standing. He looked to Ukyo. "I haven't had much chance to experiment with a high speed Hiryu Shoten Ha," he explained. "It's a lot easier to get the spiral in tight now." He grinned sheepishly. "Still kinda tiring, though, running in circles fast enough."

Ukyo chuckled and tossed Ranma her last bottle. "I think you need this more than me."

Akane jogged over. "What was that?" she asked. She glanced down and saw the principal. "Nevermind. You okay?"

Ranma and Ukyo nodded. "Yeah," Ranma said. "If we're lucky, the rest of the day will be boring."

Ranma and Akane traded off teaching Ukyo how to manage her speed for the rest of class while the other lounged lazily at the side of the track. This, too, was part of Nabiki's plan to desensitize their peers to their new forms…although Nabiki hadn't counted on the exercise in question being one the lycanthropes would dominate so very hard.

Really, when you considered speeds measured in hundreds of miles per hour a brisk jog, the comparison to everyday highschoolers was just sad. It was fortunate that the entire student body (and the entire staff) was used to being physically dominated by Saotome and the rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew _already_. Where such blatant showmanship would usually earn a hefty pile of resentment and jealousy, the simple fact was that those feelings were nearly a year old where Ranma was concerned. All that was left was…exactly what Nabiki had predicted.

Namely, that as students rounded the corner where one of the werecheetahs was taking a break, they would slow down almost to walking, and some would even stop, to stare. The ones that stopped had questions, usually hesitantly, even fearfully asked. This was why they were lounging rather than just sitting: it was a very feline position. Their body language, the mix of human and cheetah, spoke a very simple message to the primitive instincts nestled at the base of human reasoning. _I can talk and I can reason and I really have no interest in hurting you, but if I wanted to your blood would be in my mouth before you could even think of blinking._ It really cut down on the leering.

Ukyo breathed steadily as she ran, trying to make sense of the conflicting signals her magical body was sending her. Ranma paced her, watching her body and her aura. "How do you feel, Ucchan?"

"I think…I think I can keep this up for a while," Ukyo said. "I should be barely able to speak, though."

Ranma nodded. "Right. Feel the drain on the magic. Gauge it, sense your reserves."

"Yeah…I'd say...maybe an hour?"

Ranma considered his own drain pacing her. "Maybe," he agreed.

"It's just so weird having to think about this," Ukyo complained.

"Naw it isn't," Ranma said easily.

Ukyo turned to look at her fiancé. "It isn't?" she asked dubiously.

"I've seen ya run. You've trained yer speed."

Ukyo blinked. "Well, yeah. I mean you can't win a fight if you can't keep your opponent in range."

"Right," Ranma agreed easily, "but how do you know your limits?"

"What do you mean?" Ukyo asked.

Ranma waved at their classmates as they sped past them. "All them haven't trained. They're going on instinct. They're listening to their muscles."

"And training teaches you to gauge your limits better than that," Ukyo finished. "So what?"

"This is the same thing," Ranma said simply.

Ukyo blinked. "What?"

"Yer muscles are built to hit their absolute limit real easy," Ranma explained. "They hafta to get this fast. So ya gotta learn ta feel the limits on the magic that lets ya keep it up. But it gets real easy once ya get used to it."

Ukyo frowned. Trying to feel out this new part of herself, this magic, felt alien to her. But thinking back, it also felt weird thinking about her stamina back when she started training to ignore her body's much more conservative estimate on how hard she could push herself. _When did that become so easy?_ she asked herself. She had just stopped thinking about thinking about it. Did that even make sense?

Ukyo smiled a wry grin. "The path of a martial artist is wrought with weirdness," she intoned.

Ranma laughed.

* * *

The final bell rang, releasing Ranma from the hideous clutches of school and education. He sagged in his seat with a heartfelt sigh, his eyes closing for just a moment as his abused attention span broke down weeping for joy. Then he opened his eyes again. He was surrounded by classmates. They were all staring at him, expecting…something.

Ranma gulped. "I don't suppose you could ask questions one at a time?" he asked hopefully.

"Have you had a hairball yet?"

"Do you chase string?"

"Is it regular silver or alchemical silver that burns?"

"Idiot, he's too big to chase string. He'd chase a gazelle."

"Are you and Akane going to have kittens or kids?"

"What's a gazelle?"

"How many stripes do you have?"

Ranma looked around in a brief panic to see Akane at the center of her own crowd. _Dammit, we answered half these questions already!_ "Akane!" he called.

Akane looked over at him and gave a grim smile. "Saotome Secret Technique Revised!" she called back.

Ranma grinned. Oh, he had been hoping she'd say something like that. Picking the closest pervert as his victim, he grabbed the boy's shoulders and used him as a pole to vault out of his desk and over the heads of his classmates. From there he spared a moment to open the window and made clever use of gravity to expedite his escape from the building. He landed in hybrid form and bolted for the gates. Akane and Ukyo were on his heels, having made their own way through the halls at barely subsonic speeds. They made it to the gate and banked an impossibly sharp left to leave the school behind them.

Silence reigned in the classroom as the questioners watched three furry blurs race out of sight. "Well," someone said at last. "That was interesting."

* * *

The three werecheetahs made it safely home minutes later. Ranma made it to the Tendo wall first, thus winning the impromptu race the speed freaks had decided on. Ukyo was next and Akane was only a few lengths behind her.

"Ha," Ukyo taunted her rival. "Someone's been slacking in her training."

Akane glared at Ukyo. "Who was it that chugged a liter of water at school?" she countered.

"Ahem," an unfamiliar voice interrupted. "If the two of you are done squabbling?"

"Running away from your fiancées does not seem manly," a second, more familiar voice added.

The werecheetahs turned to take in the appearance of two sword-bearing redheads. Theodore Diggers was leaning up against the house in the background, but he didn't matter at all. The women in front of them were much more important.

Short hair, red as dark as the last hint of dusk, held up in curls. A traditional kimono, the honor blade of an old clan held behind the shoulder. A stern, loving, somewhat uncertain gaze. A classic Japanese beauty with a hint of the exotic. Nodoka Saotome was a familiar sight at the Tendo home, and a welcome one…usually. The way she looked at the hybrid form of her son...was utterly unreadable. That was bad.

Long hair, worn loose below the shoulders, a crimson to match Ranma-chan's former locks. Tight clothes that revealed an athletic body. A rapier of some unidentifiable alloy at her hip. Confidence oozing out her pores, the equal of Ranma's own insufferable ego. A knowing, calculating, disapproving stare at the girls. A Westerner with the bearing and grace of a model, or a deadly killer. Julia Diggers was a new visitor to the Tendo Dojo.

Ranma gulped. "Hi, Mom." It was just as well that Nabiki wasn't home yet. The bets on how this meeting would go would bankrupt a small continent.


	8. Mothers

Chapter 8: Mothers

Ranma's relationship with his mother was more deserving of the word "complicated" than any relationship, healthy or otherwise, had any right being called. Only part of that was to blame on the damn panda.

The simple fact was, his mother was a bit crazy. She wasn't violent about it, which was a nice departure from what could laughingly be called the norm of Ranma's life, but anyone that spent any kind of significant time with the matriarch of the Saotome clan quickly realized that she had her own ideas about manliness. And they were strange ideas, to say the least.

Ranma had no idea how his mother was going to react to his change, but he knew one thing. Running up to her in full hybrid form with Ukyo and Akane in tow was _not_ how he had planned the encounter.

Nodoka wore a schooled expression on her face, the mask of the stern mother. She looked Ranma over critically, examining this…person who her son had become. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Ranma was struck by déjà vu. That was how Soun had reacted to Akane…and though he reacted differently, Pops had demonstrated concern in his own twisted way. He gave a cocky smile. "It takes more than exploding ancient magic to hurt me, Mom," he said.

Nodoka frowned. "I didn't ask if you were hurt," she snapped. "I asked if you were okay."

Ranma flinched back from the outburst and forced himself to actually think about the question. "I…I'm not sure," he admitted. "I'm more 'okay' with this than I should be, at least that's what people keep telling me."

"Damn magic," the American redhead grumbled, drawing attention to her for a moment before Ranma and Nodoka returned to eachother.

"Then," Nodoka's voice hitched, "why didn't you tell me?"

Ranma's eyes widened and he suddenly realized that his mother had become an _oversight_ in all those careful plans they made. "I," he tried, then stopped. "I screwed up, Mom," he admitted. "You shoulda been the first person we called. Not Nabiki."

Nodoka let loose a shuddering sigh and stepped forward to wrap her arms around her son's massive form. "Thank you," she whispered.

Ranma returned the hug gently. "Er, for what?"

Nodoka smiled slightly, though Ranma couldn't see it. "For not making an excuse."

Ranma hugged his mother more tightly. "I'm done lying to ya, Mom."

Nodoka got out of his hug a moment later, suppressing a wince. Ranma was _strong_. Very manly, but he had to control it a bit better. "Your father chose to flee rather than tell me where you were," she said frostily. "He seemed to think I was going to remove his head."

"You did have your sword pointed at his neck," Julia observed.

"It's a meditative aide," Nodoka said, her voice getting cooler.

"Your husband meditated himself over five blocks in ten seconds," Julia observed with amusement.

"Sounds like oyaji," Ranma muttered.

Nodoka shook her head and sighed. "I wish I could argue with that."

Ukyo snorted derisively. "That panda's not worth wishing about," she said. "I need to head to Ucchan's and get ready for the after school crowd. Nice seeing you again, Mrs. Saotome."

"Hold it," the American woman said quickly. "Not so fast, young lady. First my husband needs to look you over."

Ukyo raised a speculative eyebrow. "And you are?"

"Julia Brigand Diggers," she named herself. "My husband Theo needs to inspect your enchantments."

"Why?" Ukyo challenged.

"To see if she's a thrall," Akane said grimly.

Julia nodded. "And anything else," she added. "This entire situation is unique."

Ranma's eyes widened slightly. "Wait, if you're Dr. Diggers's wife, that means you're the Armsmaster Brit was talking about?"

Julia smiled ferally. "And you are the Ranma 'Doesn't Lose to Anyone' Saotome Brittany told _me_ about. Dojo?"

"Dojo," Ranma agreed.

The three women watched the two "best of the best" fighters head off to the dojo with their personal versions of a relaxed, casual gait to hide their anticipation.

Akane turned to Nodoka. "We gotta see this," she said all too eagerly.

"My checkup can wait," Ukyo agreed.

"I'll get Soun and Theodore," Nodoka finished.

* * *

Julia surprised Ranma by placing her sword in a corner of the dojo. She didn't treat it as one would an honor blade or heirloom, so he decided it was nothing more than a weapon, a tool to her. Not that such a position did not have its own honor, but it was designed to be _used_ first and pampered later.

It also made her choice to disarm unusual. "Bare hands, then?" he asked.

Julia nodded. "Start simple, work your way up," she explained.

Ranma thought that over and transformed into his human form. "Makes sense." He put his hands in his pockets and slouched, giving Julia a hooded look of faux disinterest.

Julia frowned. "You think I need a sword to be a challenge?" she asked dangerously.

Saotome unsecret technique: irritate your opponent so much they can't see straight. "Naw. You wouldn't be a challenge either way."

Theo winced. "Oh, this isn't going to be pretty."

Julia responded with a lunging palm strike. She _was_ mad, but it took far more than a simple taunt to get her to lose composure. No, she just decided there was no point in keeping the impudent boy's beatdown at bay any more.

Ranma's hands were up faster than Julia could see and he deflected the blow with a forearm. He spun in close, bringing his other arm around with a vicious elbow blow.

Julia ducked under the swing and kicked out at Ranma's legs. The younger boy jumped to the ceiling to avoid and kicked off to accelerate himself back to Julia.

The two fighters danced around eachother for minutes, never landing a solid blow. Julia fought with experience, skill, and talent in the arts of battle, adventuring, and war, all honed since before Ranma had been born. Ranma fought with countless techniques learned stolen invented and improvised into a single harmonious style and a lifetime of experience with dueling human opponents one on one with his bare hands.

They were almost perfectly matched. Julia's vast experience clashed with Ranma's specialized training. She might have been the superior warrior, but the martial artist's duel was Ranma's domain.

Julia broke away and changed her stance just enough to try a new form. Ranma hadn't tapped his werecheetah speed, but she knew now why Brittany had been matched by the then-human martial artist. He had the skill to mask his attacks, cloud her readings. _And_ he was faster than a human had any right to be. Her next set of blows traded power for speed, and she angled her strikes to attack not the boy but his balance. She didn't even need to connect; if the young man was off-balance _just enough_…

Ranma's form changed in a heartbeat, catching Julia entirely be surprise. There was no pause, no transition. One moment Ranma was as elusive as smoke in the air, the next he was all too solid, pushing in close with punishing blows. A perfect counter to Julia's own change. Inwardly Julia groaned. Of _course_ he'd have more than the one style. She had seen in his stance that he was skilled, and the name of his school screamed it out. Anything Goes. She disengaged again and switched her stance to one favoring maneuverability, a simple counter to Ranma's hard stance and more importantly, one she knew how to branch off of. It was time to regain control of this fight. She circled him and watched for his own counter.

Ranma spun to face Julia and shifted stances. It was a risky gamble, he knew, facing a clearly experienced opponent with a stance he didn't have perfected yet. On the other hand, everything in this fight was going to be a risk. He tapped into the Ameguriken and lashed out with a dozen feather-light jabs.

Julia was confused. The high speed attack put her into power stance not unlike Ranma's had been, but the blows had been too weak to even distract her. She launched a heavy blow and actually felt it connect, a solid palm strike to the boy's side. First blood…then she realized she couldn't feel her arm anymore.

Ranma spun with the blow and knew that bruise was going to last a bit…well without werecheetah healing anyway. But it didn't matter. Pressure points weren't his thing, but that's what made it so useful. The heavy power stance that was so useful against his usual high speed style was absolutely useless against the light but incredibly precise strikes needed to manipulate his opponent's ki into defeating itself.

Julia's eyes went wide as her arm went completely limp. She tried to block a few blows with her still mobile limb and lost feeling below the wrist for her trouble. "How?" she whispered.

Ranma had no idea how huge a cultural blind spot he had stumbled into. The original immigrants to Jade had an entirely new world to adjust to, a world with new rules and new truths. Things that worked on Earth didn't on Jade, and were ruthlessly cast aside. In a world with dozens of near-human species and more threats stranger still, fighting styles based exclusively on manipulating human biology vanished from Jade's history. Julia had never seen strikes like those Ranma was busting out.

The fight ended only moments later, with Julia unable to continue fighting.

Ranma held his stance a moment longer before relaxing and offering a grin. "That was the best fight I've had in a long time," he said, breathing heavily. "It was like fighting the ol' ghoul. Why'd ya leave yourself open?"

Julia shook her head. "I've never seen anyone fight like that," she confessed. "I wouldn't know where to begin. Um, how long does this last?" Her own breathing was steady, not quite as labored as Ranma's.

"Depends on your ki," Ranma said. "Yours is pretty strong, so I figure you'll get feeling back in a minute, maybe two. But I can release it right now."

"Please," Julia said. As Ranma came closer she frowned. "I knew you were a chi-mage, but what do you mean by my ki is strong?"

Ranma frowned as he relaxed the pressure built up in Julia's shoulder. "I ain't no mage," he said.

Julia rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah, no chi-user calls himself a mage, no mage calls chi 'magic.' Too bad it is."

"You won't win this fight," Theo advised with a tired sigh. "As far as Julia is concerned, any ethereal energy is magic."

Ranma scowled. "But it ain't," he protested. "I've seen magic in action. Hell I got magic in me. That energy comes from somewhere else. I make my own ki."

Julia frowned. "From what?"

"I dunno, my life or something," Ranma shrugged. "Oyaji ain't big on teaching theory."

Julia's frown deepened and became contemplative. That was…remarkably like the theory behind the Renewing Breath technique and several of the higher end palm blows. "Can you show us?"

Ranma shrugged and excited his ki. The pure confidence in the rightness of his position excited his ki into the visible spectrum as a golden yellow aura. It seeped from his pores, wafted in the air as he moved, and evaporated as it got too far from him.

Theo stared. "That…is _not_ magic," he said firmly. The control was all wrong. Magic flowed inwards to the mage or cycled around him. This energy was _leaving_ Ranma, and the boy was utterly unconcerned. As were the other locals, he noted. That only made sense if he had an excess, a reservoir so large Theo could never have missed it, or a generator for the energy within him.

Julia nodded. "Why didn't you use this power in our fight?"

Ranma blinked. "I did," he said. "You couldn't tell?"

And he used it subtly, Julia noted. Definitely not magic. "I'd love to see what you could do with weapon in hand," she suggested.

Ranma surprised her by shaking his head. "Nah, I don't use 'em. I respect 'em, but I'm all about adapt, improvise, overcome. Stickin' with a weapon limits yer options."

Julia nodded. "Fair enough," she said agreeably. Ranma would never fight in a Tournament of Arms then, even if he did get a sponsor on Jade. It was a pity, his style would send ripples in the adventuring community.

"If you two are done for now," Theo interrupted, "I should look at young Ukyo."

Ukyo gulped. "I…guess that it would be better to know," she said shakily.

Akane gripped her shoulder encouragingly. "It doesn't change anything, Ukyo. No matter what."

Ukyo smiled at the show of support from her greatest rival. She glanced at Ranma and saw a fierce, cocky grin on his human face. It was the smile that always got her heart beating just a little faster, the take-on-the-world-if-I-have-to attitude he had, the boundless lengths he'd go to for his friends. The raw confidence and acceptance that made him so much more attractive than he would be.

So why did she think it would look better if he was in his hybrid form?

* * *

"This won't hurt a bit," Theo said.

"Why does that not comfort me?" Ukyo asked. They were inside the Tendo home, having opted for more comfortable surroundings for Ukyo's 'examination.'

Theo raised his hand and pure white shot out of it like a cannon or a fire hose. Ukyo couldn't see anything but the white, and she could hear only a small, shrill whistle. She could swear she felt the white on her bones for a moment. Then it was gone.

Ukyo glanced around and saw slack-jawed expressions pointing in her direction. "What?" she asked nervously.

Theo waved off the concern. "The spell made your skeleton visible for a moment. That's not important." Ukyo wasn't so sure about _that_ but let him continue. "You're in luck. Your enchantments are an exact match to Ranma and Akane."

"What does that mean?" Ukyo asked. "I'm still new to the magic thing, remember?"

"Ah, sorry. Short version, you're not a thrall, you can spread this variant of lycanthropy without creating more thralls, and although we'd want to check that third 'generation' before we can say anything definitive, they'll most likely be able to create more not-thralls."

"YES!" Ukyo yelled, pumping the air with both fists.

Ranma collapsed in relief, bonelessly wilting where he sat. "Oh man that's a huge relief," he sighed.

"Mmm," Theodore nodded. "Turning her was still irresponsible of you, Ranma, even though the worst of the possible outcomes was avoided."

Ranma gave the mage an even glare. "Would it have been responsible to let her die?"

Theodore sighed. "Of course not," he relented. "But even though Ukyo is not a thrall, you are responsible for an incredible, permanent change in her life, and she had no choice in the matter. This is a grave matter, Ranma."

Ranma nodded. "Believe me, I know better than just about anyone how wrong it is to turn someone into something he ain't. I'd expect if the magic wasn't makin' Ukyo accept this like me an' Akane, she'd be trying to beat my head in."

"You kidding?" Ukyo asked coyly. "You think I wouldn't follow you, Ranchan, wherever you lead?"

Akane growled low in her throat. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"What do you think it means?" Ukyo countered.

"Can you two have your cat fight after Akane bites me?" Nabiki asked, successfully derailing the impending fight.

Akane staggered as if struck from behind and turned to stare at Nabiki. "You were serious?"

"What did I just say about responsibility?" Theo asked angrily. It really wasn't any of his business, but he didn't like being ignored and, really, these people seemed to be anathema to calm, rational thought.

Soun burst into tears. No one bothered to ask why.

Julia gave Nabiki a calculating stare. "What are you thinking, child?"

Nabiki didn't care for the diminutive, but she hid it behind the mask of the ice queen. "Politics. Akane needs someone who can negotiate on her behalf."

Julia tilted her head. "Negotiate with who?"

"The ol' ghoul's clan of Chinese Amazons to start," Ranma interrupted. "They've got some rather mixed up laws about werecats. If we're lucky, that's where it ends."

"You're never that lucky, Saotome. At the very least, the other villages are going to want a say on a new treaty with this clan of yours," Nabiki predicted. "Maybe Cologne can trade enough favors to make it easier on us, but she's Cologne."

"And what does that have to do with turning you into a werecheetah?" Julia asked impatiently.

Nabiki took that up. "Cologne knows us well enough that it doesn't matter, but _anyone else_ is going to want to deal with a member of the werecat clan. I'm related to Akane by blood, but if they say I'm human and she's not, that might not be enough. I'd rather be a blonde than risk her safety."

"It's a lot more than being blonde, sugar," Ukyo said, gesturing to her massive hybrid form.

"But only if you choose."

Julia shook her head. "They can look human, but they never truly are again. If you go through with this, everything changes. You can hide it, you can pretend it isn't there, but you'll be something other than you are now, forever."

Nabiki looked Julia in the eye. "I'm the Ice Queen of Nerima. I can handle that."

"But do you want it?" Julia pressed.

Nabiki smiled slightly. "No," she said pleasantly, "but I don't let that bother me. This isn't some challenger Ranma can toss out on his ass. I'm the only one that can protect them, and this is the only way I can do it."

"Oh my, Nabiki, but what about college?" Kasumi asked.

Nabiki shrugged. "I can put my plans on hold for a year or two to get business here squared away. I might lose my shot at a scholarship, but there's always another one if you know where to look."

Julia shot a look at Theo. "She's thought this out," she declared.

Theo nodded glumly. "I don't like this, but I don't really have a right to stop you. It's your life, after all."

"Well I'm not going to do it!" Akane bellowed.

"Okay," Nabiki said. She turned to Ukyo. "I'm willing to write off half your debt if you'll do me a favor," she said.

Akane gaped and sputtered. "Nabiki!" Ukyo's eyes widened as the implications struck her.

Nabiki turned back to Akane. "I'd rather keep this in family, little sister, but this is going to happen one way or another."

Akane looked ready to rip her fur out. "C'mon Nabiki, think!" she begged. "This isn't in your best interest!"

"Screw my best interest," Nabiki said. "This is _family_. You need me, Akane, and anyone else who can fight with words instead of fists. Or you could end up dead. I'm not going to let that happen."

Akane winced at the steel in Nabiki's voice. "Nabiki…this could make you a target."

Nabiki laughed slightly. "We're talking about people that want to kill you just to watch you die, werecat," she pointed out. "People like that don't care about bystanders, and they'll probably target us _first_ because we can't fight on your level." She gestured to herself and Kasumi. "I'm already a target. At least this way I can run if things go to hell. So, are we doing this, or am I bribing Ukyo?"

Akane whimpered, her resolve breaking. Nabiki made good points. Too many of them. "If you are okay with it, can you make her bribe me anyway?" Ukyo asked.

Akane grinned weakly. "Um, half her debt?"

Nabiki frowned. Ukyo wasn't her biggest debtor, but she was the most reliable. She had a steady income and made regular payments, so Nabiki gave her excellent terms. It rankled to risk such a cash cow. "A quarter," Nabiki countered. "You know this needs to be done anyway."

Akane glanced at Ukyo, who nodded. She sighed. "Nabiki, are you _sure_ this-"

"Just do it!" Nabiki snapped.

Akane flinched back and nodded again. "Okay. Um, where should I…?"

Nabiki rolled up her sleeve. "Above the elbow, please."

Akane took one look around, searching faces for some way out. Other than Soun crying for the safety of his girls, everyone had a grim expression… "Wait," Akane said suddenly.

"Oh for god's sake," Nabiki grumbled. "Ukyo, get over here."

"No," Akane said sharply, looking around again. "Seriously, stop. Where's Ranma?"

"Huh?" Ukyo asked, looking around herself. Everyone followed her lead.

Then they blinked at eachother cluelessly.

Ranma Saotome was gone.


	9. Choices

Chapter 9: Choices

The Tendo home was quiet for a moment as the assembled confirmed, again, that Ranma was nowhere to be seen.

Akane and Ukyo broke off from the group, Akane walking throughout the house and Ukyo the grounds and dojo, both calling "Ranma?" in slowly increasing volume, confusion, and worry.

Nabiki sat down when they returned and ran her fingers over the table lightly as she thought. "We can mark off the usual suspects," she said quickly. "He wasn't kidnapped, taken on a training trip, sent out to rescue Akane-"

"Hey," Akane objected.

"-roped into a date, or found a cure for the curse," Nabiki finished, not looking at her sister.

"Those are the usual suspects?" Theodore Diggers asked.

"Oh my, yes," Kasumi said innocently. "He can get very busy very quickly. But he's usually a great deal louder about it."

"Right, which means he left himself, quietly, while we were distracted," Nabiki agreed.

"Why?" Ukyo asked.

Akane looked to her rival. "He's upset about something," she said. "Something about turning Nabiki set him off, and he's gone off somewhere to think it over."

"What makes you so sure?" Ukyo asked.

Akane blushed through her fur and shrugged. "I…well it's what Ranma does when something's bothering him," she said hotly. No way was she going to say _because I know him_. Ranma no baka.

Nabiki gave Akane a calculating look. "Okay, so Ranma's off having a pout. No big deal. Can you bite me now?"

"No," Akane said. "I want to make sure Ranma's okay first. What if I'm wrong?"

Nabiki sighed. "And how do you plan to do that?"

"I know most of his thinking spots," Akane said. "Besides, it's only been a few minutes. He can't have gotten…oh."

"Right," Ukyo drawled. "He could have gotten really far."

"Well we'll just find him anyway," Akane insisted. "After all we're as fast as he is."

Julia took a few steps back as the girls continued bickering over their plans. She looked to Theo. "Do you have him yet?"

Theo nodded. "You don't think we should tell them?"

"Not until we know why. Go."

* * *

Ranma had always enjoyed sitting under the bridges in Nerima. They were not too quiet, not too loud, secluded, and open enough to have a lot of escape routes. Unfortunately now he had to contend with a couple fiancées that could check each bridge in the district in five minutes flat. That in mind, Ranma had chosen a bridge a few miles outside the ward. It wasn't a familiar retreat, but it was safer.

Ranma took another pebble in hand and flung it into the river. Despite the poor shape it skipped once, a testament to his fine control over the spin of anything he threw. He'd seen Mousse skip a bad pebble three times, though. He'd need to work on that a bit.

"Not bad."

Ranma half-turned. "Mr. Diggers," he said dully. "How'd you find me?"

"It's doctor, actually, but please call me Theo, or at least Theodore. And after raising Britanny, I've put together a few spells for tracking werecheetahs. Saved my sanity during her teen years."

Ranma made some noncommittal grunt and turned back to the river. "Did you tell anyone?"

"Where you are? No. Why you ran?" Theo shook his head. "I was hoping you'd be willing to talk about it."

"And if I don't you'd just tell them where I am, right?" Ranma grumbled. "I don't even get that much choice, do I?"

"Of course you do," Theo said, surprised. "Ranma, I'm not going to turn you in. And if you want, I'll help keep them at bay for a while so you can think through…whatever you need to."

Ranma blinked and turned to the aging mage. "…why would you do that?" he asked.

"Because no matter how much they care about you, they're too young to realize that sometimes a man needs to be alone. And you're old enough to have that right."

"So why'd you hunt me down?" Ranma asked suspiciously.

Theo took a step back calmly. "I didn't know if this was one of those times. I'll leave you be, then."

Ranma watched Theo turn and walk away. Given that he could teleport, Ranma figured the mage was giving him time to…heck with it. "You know, Doc," he called out, "you're the first one that's given a damn about what I wanted to do for a long time."

Theo turned and raised an eyebrow. "'Doc?' I guess I can live with that. What do you mean?" He took a few slow, casual steps forward and, when Ranma didn't object, walked up to the riverbank and sat down a few feet from Ranma.

"The last guy was Dr. Tofu," Ranma explained, turning back to stare at the river. "He got me in a few places where I didn't want to be…but they helped me figure out what I really wanted so I can't be mad at him. He moved his practice a while back, though. Ever since then…honor this, duty that, agreement here, contract there." He allowed a humorless laugh. "Even Akane starts with what she wants."

Theo took a smooth pebble and tried to skip it across. It bounced once and sank. "And you can't just shut them up about it?" he asked. "From what you've told us, you never agreed to any of it."

Ranma glanced at the man. "Must be different in America," he said, mostly to himself. "If I just break any of it off, my honor's trashed. That means a lot, here."

"Honor means a lot in any decent society," Theo said. "The particulars don't matter. Your sense of self-worth is tied up in this, right?" He saw Ranma nod in the corner of his eye. "Then that's that. Your honor is on the line. That makes it important…whatever 'it' is." He let Ranma enjoy the silence for a moment. "How does your father feel about honor?"

Ranma snorted loudly. "Pops? He'll use it against me at the drop of a hat, but he threw away whatever claim to honor he had long ago."

"So he didn't teach you to value honor?"

"Of course he did," Ranma sneered. "Anything to keep his hooks in me."

"But you obviously don't respect those lessons," Theo pressed.

"I thought you weren't gonna question my honor," Ranma snapped, glowering at Theo.

For his part, Theo just watched the river. "All I'm trying to ask, Ranma, is why you care about your honor."

Ranma sputtered a bit. "It's…well…it's my _honor_," he said, almost desperately. "I dunno how to say it."

"You don't care about it because of your father?" Theo asked.

Ranma shook his head, feeling very confused.

"What about your mother?"

"Well," Ranma hedged, "she an' I agree on a lot o' it, but she wasn't really around when I…started to care."

"So who was?" Theo asked. "Ukyo? Akane? Shampoo? Ryoga?"

"No, no none of them," Ranma muttered. "There really wasn't anyone but me an' pops."

"Then if he didn't make you care about honor, Ranma, you decided to care all on your own," Theo said with satisfaction, looking away from the river.

Ranma looked back and let that thought bounce around in his brain. "I decided?" he asked. His eyes unfocused, looking back into his memories. "I guess…I mean I never really sat down and _decided_, but…"

Theo waved that off. "The important thing is that your honor is important to you _because_ of you. Your father might have tried to make it a leash to drag you around on, but the only reason that works is because you care about it. Not what anyone else cares about."

Ranma scowled. "Well I still can't just drop it," he snapped.

"Of course not," Theo agreed. "But you can recognize it for what it is. It's something that matters to you, so you can't, you mustn't let it become a _word_ others can use to make you jump through their hoops."

Ranma thought about that and turned back to the river. He picked up a stone and examined it, then flung it over the water to land on the far side. "It's not that easy," he complained once the rock had stopped.

Theo turned back to the river as well. "I never said it was easy," he agreed. "It's just a first step. Help you figure out what you really do care about. Coming up with a plan comes later."

Ranma nodded a bit and looked for another rock. "How's Nabiki?" he asked quietly.

"Human," Theo said after a moment. He noticed Ranma sag slightly, like a weight had been taken off. "For now, anyway." Ranma stiffened; the weight was back. "That really bothers you, doesn't it?"

"She's changing her whole life," Ranma growled. "She's just jumping into this and we don't even know what all there is. Bad enough I dragged Ukyo into this mess. At least Shampoo got away."

Theo blinked slowly. "You think this is your fault?"

"Of course it's my fault!" Ranma exploded. "If I hadn't fought Herb or Saffron or any of those other princes kings and lunatics then no one would care! But since they think they know me, they're gonna try and negotiate or something with my 'clan' so I'm dragging everyone into this mess!"

Theo thought that over and hesitated. He'd never been this candid with anyone…but if anyone had a right to know after his daughters… "I was there when the werecheetahs were wiped out," he said.

"Yeah, you told us," Ranma said.

"What I didn't tell you was that I had a chance to stop it before it happened," Theo sighed. His face was firmly on the river, while Ranma turned to him in shock. "I met with that madman. I tried to erase his spells, stop him…I thought I'd won. I thought I'd outsmarted him. But I didn't know enough about the magic he used. I might as well not have been there." Theo's voice broke as emotion clogged his throat. "The werecheetahs…Britanny's family…I killed them with my ignorance."

Ranma was quiet for a long, long time. "Did ya try your best?" he asked.

Theo nodded. "I could have…if I'd overpowered Brendan we would have torn up the countryside, hurt others. It wouldn't have been as bad as…as what happened, though. But I thought I could win without putting others in danger."

Ranma nodded. "Then what are you blaming yourself for?" he asked. You saved Brit. You stood up for what ya thought was right. There's honor there, Doc, lots of it. What happened…that's on the maniac's head."

Theo smiled. "Not quite how Brit put it," he said, "but she pretty much said the same thing when she found out. And you're right, of course. What others do because of me isn't my fault."

Ranma twitched slightly. Then he let the smile show, quiet and rueful. "Clever, Doc. Real clever. Just like Saffron, Herb, and all them aren't my fault either?"

Theo offered Ranma a confidant grin that would have been more at home on the youth's face. "I knew you were smarter than you acted."

Ranma allowed a laugh at that. And that laugh led to another, and another, until both men were letting the emotions they'd let loose go in a moment of unrestrained hysteria that echoed throughout the forest.

Theo recovered first. "So, now that we've run in circles around it, want to tell me what set you off?"

Ranma leaned back, catching himself on his palms and looking up at the sky. "Ahhh…it really seems silly after all that," he said.

Theo shook his head. "Not at all. It's something important to you."

"True," Ranma said. "It's just…I don't know that I want to make a werecheetah clan. But everyone's figuring I will."

"Ahhh," Theo said, nodding. "I thought it might have been that when you started talking about choice. You think we're pushing you to repopulate the species?"

Ranma nodded slowly. "Yeah."

"I once pushed Britanny towards that," Theo said. "I was a complete jackass."

Ranma blinked and looked over to the older man. "This isn't another lesson, is it?"

"Nope," Theo said ruefully. "We were at her wedding with Stryyp when a male werecheetah walks in. Right there at the altar, we wanted her to give up the man she'd chosen for this stranger. And in the end he turned out to be a golem, a fake one of her enemies had created."

Ranma growled. "Created? Just like that?"

"Don't worry, she's paid for her crimes," Theo said grimly. "And Raphael had a happy ending. But…I've made the mistake of telling people who to love once, and that was ten times too many." He offered a mildly perverted grin. "But in your case, someday having little werecheetah cubs running around is pretty much guaranteed."

Ranma blushed straight through his fur. "Er, yeah," he managed. "But with the weird lycanthropy thing…"

"No one said you ever have to use it," Theo pointed out. "Even me. It can't be about what I want."

Ranma thought it over. "I…want to learn more about who the werecheetahs were," he said. "Maybe I wasn't part of that clan, but…"

"Talk to Britanny," Theo advised. "She'll understand."

Ranma nodded. "Until…until we know more about what's really going on, no more talk of a clan, okay? I'm on a Saotome, Akane's a Tendo, Ukyo's a Kuonji. We're not family."

"Yet," Theo said. Catching Ranma's expression he backtracked. "I mean you marrying Akane."

"Oh," Ranma said, the blush returning.

Theo chuckled and got to his feet. "Well, by now your friends will have searched most of Tokyo. We should probably get back so they can call off the search."

Ranma nodded and got to his feet. "Hey, um, Doc? I never really, uh, talked to anyone when I…I mean before it was just me and the river, ya know?"

Theo grinned. "What's said at the river, stays at the river?" Ranma nodded. "No problem, Ranma. No problem at all." He gestured in the air and the quiet wilderness melted away to be replaced with the Tendo dojo.

* * *

"Ranma!" Nabiki snapped, more out of surprise than anything else, when Ranma walked into the house, Theo trailing behind. "Where have you been?"

"Out," Ranma said evasively.

Nabiki's eyes narrowed and she glanced at Theo. The older man's face betrayed nothing. "Clearly," she said dryly, returning her attention to Ranma's now-familiar feline face. "You know your clan went a little crazy without you to guide them," she teased.

Nabiki bit back a curse at the low growl Ranma offered. _Okay, that is not a button I want to push_, she decided. Ranma was a fun mark to tease, but she had a healthy respect for the kind of damage he could inflict if he ever got _really_ mad at her. "Well, might as well call them and let them know that the hunt's off," she muttered. It would also give her a chance to figure out just what button she had pushed.

Ranma watched Nabiki head for the phone and calmly counted to three. He only made it to one. "BOY!" Genma bellowed, marching into the room. "What are you thinking, running off like a scared little girl? You must restore your honor immediately by marrying Akane!"

Ranma looked down at the enraged mass of fat and muscle he called a father and glanced at Theo. "See what I mean?" he asked conversationally.

Theo reminded himself that he should never, ever think that he had seen everything. The universe would spontaneously generate something even worse just to prove him wrong. Not for the first time he wondered what kind of perverse mind had put reality together.

* * *

Brianna glanced over at her sister. "Something wrong?"

Gina frowned. "No, I just...you know that feeling where you're about to sneeze, but it's just not coming out, and it's like everyone's just staring at you waiting for it to get it over with so they can move on?"

"Yeah," Brianna said, confused.

"This doesn't feel anything like that."

"Huh. Weird. So, back to violating the laws of man and nature?"

"Of course!" Gina chirped, strapping down her welder's mask and turning back to her latest abomination against all logic and reason.

* * *

"Ranma!" Akane bellowed as she stalked towards her fiancée, "do you want to tell me what you were thinking running off on me like that?"

Ranma took in the faint blue aura around Akane, the furred hand flexing as if missing the weight of a mallet, the steady stance that could balance a swing of incomparable power at a moment's notice. "No," he said honestly.

"Well tell me anyway!" Akane exploded. "You had me worried, baka!"

"You were worried about me?" Ranma sneered. "I can take care of myself, tomboy."

"Jerk!"

"Uncute!"

"Pervert!"

"And you can't cook!"

"Rrrranma no baka!" Akane yelled out, stretching Ranma's name as a growl deep in her chest. Her trusty mallet in hand, she charged forward and swung for the fences, or Ranma's skull, whichever splattered on her hammer first.

Ranma calmly hopped back and Akane's swing found no purchase. The Tendo werecat spun like a top and overbalanced, falling backwards and right into Ranma's arms. He shifted his stance to support her weight and his arms snaked around her gently, but there was nothing gentle about the strength that held them there. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest and her ears folding against her head and she stared upwards at him with the widest eyes she'd ever had. He was looking down at her and although there was a skittering nervousness dancing in those magnificent blue orbs, something in that gaze washed all the strength out of Akane's legs. Ranma's grip tightened in response. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

"Eh," Akane tried, blushing furiously at the high pitched squeak that came out instead. She tried again. "I'm fine," she whispered.

Julia coughed.

The werecheetah's heads snapped up in horror as they remembered that they were not alone. The fathers were pouring sake and cheering about the joining of the schools. Nodoka had a set of victory fans calmly lying on the table next to her, close at hand in case they were needed. Kasumi was supplying the sake. Nabiki had her camera out and a satisfied smile. Theo was politely inspecting a small picture hung on the wall.

Julia didn't even have the decency to hide her smile. "I'm not entirely sure, but I think if Ukyo hadn't been called away by her waitress, I think this house would be a warzone right now."

Nabiki shook her head. "It would have spilled out into the streets by now. Think she'll pay for the picture?"

Akane and Ranma hadn't yet managed to move. "You have pictures?" Akane asked weakly.

Nabiki snapped another one. "Yes. Good caught in the act pose, little sister."

"Huh?" Akane finally realized Ranma was still basically carrying her. "Aah!" She squirmed, trying to break free. "Ranma, let go!"

Ranma opened his arms on reflex, still staring at Nabiki with an unreadable expression. "How much?"

"To make sure Ukyo never sees them?" Nabiki teased.

Ranma shook his head. "To make sure my copy is the only one."

Nabiki suddenly fell out of her rhythm. "What was that, Saotome?"

"You want a copy?" Akane asked weakly.

Ranma nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said, not entirely clear why. "Yeah, I do."

Nabiki gave Ranma a calculating look. "Well, I suppose if you convinced Akane to turn me-aah!"

Akane pulled back and wiped the taste out of her mouth. "What is that, some kind of lotion?" she gagged.

Nabiki was too busy looking at the rapidly healing bite mark on her forearm to notice Ranma relieving her of her camera.


End file.
